Threat · curated 2 Aug 2026
Morris II Worm: AI’s First Self-Replicating Malware | Cybersecurity Magazine
First reported cybermagazine.com
Coverage timeline
Single-source research — first reported, latest, and curated coincide.
Why it matters
Morris II shows that self-replicating prompt-injection worms can autonomously spread through interconnected Gen AI agents and exfiltrate data, opening a new zero-click attack surface as organizations integrate AI agents into their workflows.
Morris II is a researcher-built, zero-click AI worm developed by Cornell Tech researchers that spreads via adversarial self-replicating prompts, tricking Gen AI models into replicating malicious input in their output. Tested against Gemini Pro, ChatGPT 4.0 and LLaVA, it demonstrates data extraction and spam propagation capabilities across AI-integrated ecosystems.