Cyber ·
AI tools exposed on the internet grew 63% in nine months
Censys counted 267,915 addresses with AI software open to the internet in July 2026, up from 164,088 in October 2025. n8n leads, and most installations that report a version have a critical flaw.
According to Help Net Security, the growth spans 44 products. n8n, a workflow automation platform used to connect AI agents to other services, accounts for 113,926 hosts, and 76.1% of those reporting a version run a release affected by at least one flaw scored 9.0 or higher. These servers store credentials for the services their workflows connect to. OpenClaw, a self-hosted AI agent, gained a control panel on January 5, 2026; six days later there were 2 exposed panels and, by April 7, 85,478.
This is what shadow AI looks like: tools set up fast, rarely updated, holding passwords for email, databases and internal systems. The recommendation is to take automation and agent panels off the internet, behind a VPN or strong authentication, update the installations and rotate the credentials stored on any server that was exposed. Old versions barely disappear, so keep an inventory of what is online and shut down what nobody uses.
Original source: The internet's attack surface moves at very different speeds