Storm-3168 Uses Stolen Cloud Credentials to Wipe Azure Resources in Suspected AI-Driven Attack

Microsoft Security Research has linked extensive malicious Azure activity to Storm-3168, which Sysdig tracks as JADEPUFFER. Sysdig discovered the actor in July 2026 and reported it as the first documented agentic ransomware operation. Microsoft's findings give the first detailed view of the group's Azure activity and show its cloud operations evolving.

In one compromised tenant, attackers took over two service principals, which are identities used by applications and automated workloads rather than people. One performed reconnaissance and resource discovery. The other performed discovery, destructive operations and credential collection. In early June 2026, one identity listed virtual machines, subscriptions, resource groups and resources for about 15 hours and 30 minutes, with more than 300 successful read operations. This gave the attacker visibility across the Azure environment. The destruction that followed hit Storage Accounts, SQL databases, Key Vaults, Function Apps, recovery protection locks, Virtual Machines and App Services. The collected credentials could support future data theft.

Microsoft says the activity reflects a wider shift toward AI-orchestrated attacks, where criminals coordinate complex post-compromise steps across cloud environments with more speed and scale. Its advice includes protecting workload identities and secrets, enforcing least privilege, safeguarding recovery resources and enabling relevant Microsoft Defender for Cloud protections. Importantly, publicly exposed credentials stay usable until they are revoked or rotated, so deleting the original leak does not fix the problem.