123 Reg discloses 'AI cyberattack' on customer data, suspects China nexus

UK domain registrar 123 Reg (no relation – Ed) says it was the victim of an “AI-driven cyberattack” that exposed customer data.

Customers began receiving their notification emails this week, informing them that their contact information, "related customer relationship data," company VAT numbers, and "product information from an application programming interface (API)" were compromised.

A company spokesperson elaborated, saying this means that names, phone numbers, countries, language and currency preferences, account creation dates, the products on the account, and marketing preferences were affected.

123 Reg described the September 18 intrusion as "the first known AI-driven cyberattack against our company," and told The Register that early signs point toward a China-nexus attacker.

"Our investigation identified IP addresses that we assessed to be the core attacker infrastructure, which were hosted in China and Singapore, indicating a strong Chinese nexus," the spokesperson said.

"Our investigation further identified AI cyberattack 'skills' hosted on Chinese infrastructure, including copies of skills open sourced by Anthropic and …