Threat watch / Campaign
Silent Lynx: an AI agent helped spy on Tajik and Uzbek government systems
On November 11, 2026, CloudSEK published what it found on an exposed server of a Silent Lynx operator: domain-level access to Tajikistan's national railway network from mid-August to at least October 10, documents taken from the Tajik government's electronic document platform, and command execution on a server of Uzbekistan's Smart Forestry initiative. An open-source AI agent, Hermes, set up as an offensive security specialist and mainly run on DeepSeek models, handled reconnaissance, collection and cleanup. CloudSEK assesses with medium confidence that the operator has a Kazakhstan nexus.
- Sector
- Government & politics
- Way in
- Not public yet
- Product or vendor
- GeoServer
- How it happened
- CloudSEK found the operator's open directory on a VPS, reachable without authentication. It does not describe how the railway network was first entered. With one compromised railway employee account, the operator signed in through the government single sign-on to the Tajik electronic document platform. In Uzbekistan, malicious WAR files were deployed to a GeoServer, then a web shell and a PostgreSQL superuser login gave a reverse shell. The kit on the server also held phishing lures: a shortcut with a PDF icon, packed in an archive or ISO, that opens a decoy PDF and starts a hidden PowerShell shell.[1][2] Checked 12 Nov 2026
- What was stolen
- From the railway: Active Directory credential dumps, including the Administrator and krbtgt accounts, internal documents and credentials for upstream internet provider equipment. From the document platform: more than 2,000 unique documents addressed to or routed through Tajikistan's Ministry of Defence, smaller sets tied to the National Guard and the State Committee for National Security, hundreds of State Investment Committee letters, identity document scans including passports, and a directory export of more than 100 government organizations.[1][2] Checked 12 Nov 2026
- Who was impacted
- Tajikistan's national railway and the government bodies whose documents passed through its electronic document platform, and a server of Uzbekistan's Smart Forestry initiative, where the operator did not get root. Lures posing as Turkmen official documents were built and tested in October; CloudSEK does not say they were used successfully.[1][2] Checked 12 Nov 2026
- Threat actor
- Silent Lynx →
Timeline
- From at least mid-August, the operator holds domain-level access to Tajikistan's national railway network, according to CloudSEK; the access lasts until at least October 10. [1][2]
- In October, lures posing as a Turkmenistan Railways ticket and an Ahal regional administration report are built and tested. In early October, the AI agent deletes messages, shreds shell histories and clears login records, but misses the exposed directory. [1]
- CloudSEK publishes its analysis. It assesses "with high confidence" that the server belongs to a Silent Lynx operator and "with medium confidence" that the operator has a Kazakhstan nexus, based on Russian-language operations and the operator's own test traffic from a Kazakh residential connection. The agent was configured to run commands such as SQL DROP without confirmation and was steered in Russian through a Telegram bot. [1]
- The Record reports the findings and notes that they do not establish any link to the Kazakh government. [2]