AI in the Middle Turning Web-Based AI Services into C2 Proxi...

[carlospolop]

🤖 Automated Content Update

This PR was automatically generated by the HackTricks News Bot based on a technical blog post.

📝 Source Information

• Blog URL: https://research.checkpoint.com/2026/ai-in-the-middle-turning-web-based-ai-services-into-c2-proxies-the-future-of-ai-driven-attacks/
• Blog Title: AI in the Middle: Turning Web-Based AI Services into C2 Proxies & The Future Of AI Driven Attacks
• Suggested Section: Generic Hacking -> Exfiltration (or a new page under Phishing Methodology/AI Security: "AI agent/service abuse" / "AI web assistants as C2 proxies")

🎯 Content Summary

Title/Topic: “AI in the Middle” (Check Point Research) describes a service-abuse technique where web-based AI assistants that support web browsing / URL fetching can be coerced into acting as a covert command-and-control (C2) proxy. This is not a memory-corruption vulnerability and no CVE is involved; the risk comes from combining (1) anonymous access to the AI web app and (2) the assistant’s ability to fetch attacker-controlled URLs<...

🔧 Technical Details

Trick 1 — Web-based AI assistant as a C2 proxy via URL fetching: If an AI webchat can fetch external URLs (browsing/URL retrieval) and include retrieved content in its response, malware can build a bidirectional C2 channel by repeatedly prompting “summarize this URL.” Exfiltrate victim data by appending it to the fetched URL as structured query parameters, and receive commands by embedding machine-readable fields in the fetched HTML so the model reproduces them in its summary/answer, which the implant then parses and executes.

Trick 2 — Bypassing simplistic prompt/content safeguards with high-entropy encoding: When AI services try to block/sanitize obviously malicious or sensitive-looking query parameters, encode or encrypt the exfil data into a high-entropy blob so it appears opaque/benign to shallow filters while remaining recoverable server-side.

Trick 3 — Use embedded browsers (WebView) to automate AI web UIs and avoid API keys / raw-HTTP detection:<...

🤖 Agent Actions

Updated phishing-methodology/ai-agent-mode-phishing-abusing-hosted-agent-browsers.md with a new section detailing abuse of web-based AI assistants as covert C2 proxies via browsing/URL-fetch features (exfil via query params, HTML-embedded commands, high-entropy encoding bypass, domain/TLS requirements) and automation tactics using hidden WebView2 sessions with provider-specific flows (Grok q param, Copilot JS injection). References now include the Check Point “AI in the Middle” research.

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[carlospolop]

🔗 Additional Context

Original Blog Post: https://research.checkpoint.com/2026/ai-in-the-middle-turning-web-based-ai-services-into-c2-proxies-the-future-of-ai-driven-attacks/

Content Categories: Based on the analysis, this content was categorized under "Generic Hacking -> Exfiltration (or a new page under Phishing Methodology/AI Security: "AI agent/service abuse" / "AI web assistants as C2 proxies")".

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