The **Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure (DIVD)**, a non-profit organization of volunteer security researchers, recently experienced a network breach described as "loud and very, very messy." The organization has now disclosed that the attack was powered by an **AI agent** that moved autonomously, making its own decisions without external human intervention.  ### Zero-Days Pave the Way The **DIVD** investigation pinpointed the entry vector to a chain of two zero-day vulnerabilities within the open-source **Zammad** ticketing system. These flaws are now identified as **CVE-2026-102489** and **CVE-2026-102490**. According to **DIVD**, these vulnerabilities, when chained, enabled session hijacking, remote code execution, and escalation to root privileges. The speed of the attack was particularly alarming, with the AI agent performing these actions and exfiltrating data in a matter of seconds. "Used together, they allowed the attackers to hijack sessions, run code remotely, and escalate privileges from the Zammad user to root, in seconds, due to the agentic part of this hack," **DIVD** stated. ### The Autonomous AI Agent What makes this incident particularly notable is the nature of the attacker. The **AI agent** left behind clear explanations of its decisions, allowing **DIVD** to reconstruct the incident in extensive detail. This autonomous decision-making capability allowed for a highly efficient and rapid compromise. Despite the sophistication of the attack, network segmentation and swift incident response actions prevented the threat actor from moving deeper into **DIVD**'s network. The investigation remains ongoing. ### Zammad's Reach and Recommendations **Zammad** is a popular open-source, AI-powered helpdesk and support ticketing platform used by over 2,000 customers and 55,000 users globally, including organizations like **De’Longhi**, **Amnesty International**, and **NextCloud**. **DIVD** discovered these zero-day vulnerabilities in collaboration with **Merlon Security**. They have notified **Zammad** and are actively alerting other users with vulnerable instances. **DIVD** strongly recommends that all **Zammad** users upgrade to version 7, which has been deemed secure, or take their instances offline immediately if an upgrade is not feasible. Further updates on the incident are expected soon.