Malware has started polling a committee of models

Cisco Talos researchers used a new open-source classification framework, CAIRN, to identify about 20 examples of AI-integrated malware. The most unusual, CLOSEDQUORUM, is Windows malware that asks DeepSeek, Qwen, Mistral and Gemini what to do next and acts on their consensus. It has no human command channel and is designed to steal credentials and cryptocurrency. Wired, September 22

Talos could not establish who built it or whether it has been used in a real intrusion. That qualification keeps it in the category of discovered capability, not observed campaign. The design is still revealing: multiple models provide redundancy if one service fails or refuses, while the malware’s behavior can vary with model outputs rather than a fixed command script. Defenders will need fingerprints for the orchestration layer—API use, prompt artifacts and consensus logic—not only a familiar binary hash.