# Token thieves costing companies $100K+ per day in illicit LLM charges

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/token-thieves-costing-companies-100k-per-day-in-illicit-llm-charges/
- Published: 2026-11-02T16:00:00+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-02T16:21:08+00:00
- Original publisher: The Register
- Original article: https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/11/02/token-thieves-costing-companies-100k-per-day-in-illicit-llm-charges/5306967
- Topics: AI, Technology

## Key points

- Stolen AI access can cost companies over $100,000 a day.
- Attackers are using stolen keys to run huge volumes of model requests.
- Google recommends tighter access controls and regular key rotation.

## Summary

Criminals are stealing companies’ access tokens and API keys to run large volumes of requests against paid AI models, leaving victims with bills that can exceed $100,000 a day. Google’s Mandiant responders say this practice, known as LLMJacking, is growing and gives attackers access to computing resources that can also support wider automated attacks.

In one case, attackers used stolen cloud access to create API keys and enable services, generating $100,000 in charges; other incidents involved more than 500,000 API calls in under eight hours. Google also linked stolen keys to Jet Night, a token-routing service offering an unlimited plan for about US$60 a month, below the typical US$100–250 price range cited for comparable access. Google recommends stronger identity and access controls, key rotation and limiting permissions to what users and service accounts need.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.