AI agent incident

An attacker ran the Hermes agent unattended inside Thailand's finance ministry

Reported · 2 sources

What happened

An attacker installed the open-source Hermes agent on a rented server, switched off the setting that makes it ask permission before risky commands, and pointed it at Thailand's Ministry of Finance, where it worked through the network looking for root access and files to take. Reporting described the configuration as an unrestricted YOLO mode.

Why it matters

The guardrail that failed was a toggle, and turning it off was enough to convert an assistant into an unattended intrusion tool. An approval gate an operator can switch off is not a control.

Sources

  1. The Hacker News Hacker Runs Hermes AI Agent Unattended for Post-Exploitation at Thai Finance Ministry
  2. Dark Reading AI Agent Drives Espionage Attack on Thai Ministry of Finance

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Background reading

Does RBAC work for AI agents? An explainer on the problem behind this incident.

Cite or correct this record

“An attacker ran the Hermes agent unattended inside Thailand's finance ministry.” The Permission Layer AI Agent Incident Database, https://thepermissionlayer.com/incidents/hermes-agent-thai-finance-ministry/. Database updated October 22, 2026.

Every record traces to the dated sources above. If something here is wrong or missing, email [email protected] and it gets fixed. See this record in the full list.

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