AI Gateway Connected to Amazon Bedrock Hijacked for Cryptomining

An AI gateway (LiteLLM) connected to Amazon Bedrock was hijacked for Monero cryptomining after an SSH port was left exposed to the internet, allowing attackers to deploy XMRig malware. The root issue is a misconfigured, internet-facing service with insufficient access restrictions on a privileged component that had direct cloud infrastructure access. This matters because AI gateways often carry elevated permissions to cloud services like Bedrock, making them high-value targets — a single compromise can cascade into broader cloud account abuse, cost explosion, and data exposure. Organizations are rapidly deploying AI infrastructure without applying the same hardening rigor used for traditional systems, creating a growing and underappreciated attack surface.