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Cisco Talos Details CLOSEDQUORUM, Malware That Lets Four AI Models Vote on Its Next Move

Talos says the implant hands tactical choices to commercial AI models and warns defenders to watch for linked AI and Discord traffic as signs of automated post-compromise activity.

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Overview

  • Cisco Talos published a technical analysis and detection artifacts between September 22 and 24 that describe CLOSEDQUORUM and include SHA-256 hashes, a YARA rule, and a Snort rule.
  • The Go-based implant queries up to four commercial models (DeepSeek, Qwen, Mistral, Google Gemini), requires each model to return one of four fixed actions, and carries out the majority-vote result without further human commands.
  • If the vote ties, the program breaks ties in a fixed order with DeepSeek given priority followed by Qwen, Mistral, and Gemini, and the public build’s 'move' option has no implemented handler.
  • When the models pick 'steal' the malware dumps LSASS memory, extracts saved browser passwords from Chrome/Edge/Firefox, scans for MetaMask/Exodus/Ethereum wallet data, then encrypts and posts chunks to an operator Discord webhook using a date-derived key that Talos calls weak.
  • Talos notes the public sample is inert because it ships with placeholder API keys and a dummy Discord webhook but warns development builds may include real credentials, and it tells defenders to focus on behavioral signs such as one Windows process contacting multiple AI APIs and Discord while doing LSASS access, process injection, or creating WMI/Registry persistence.