{"schema_version":"0.10.0","id":"LR-2026-0318","record_version":1,"title":"BasisOS yield protocol on Virtuals Protocol: human operator posed as AI agent and $500,000 of user funds were stolen","verification":{"human_verified":false,"method":"automated_gate","auto_verified":true,"score":48.0,"score_breakdown":{"source_authority":12.1,"independent_corroboration":7.0,"implicated_party_confirmed":0.0,"citation_integrity":14.0,"specificity":3.0,"completeness":4.48,"unhedged_language":5.0},"checks":{"schema_valid":true,"every_field_cited":true,"quotes_verbatim":true,"source_fetched":true,"distinct_incident":true,"dates_plausible":true,"sources_agree":true,"source_describes_incident":true,"severe_backed_by_source":true,"record_integrity":true,"eligible":true,"about_this_case":true},"gate_version":"gate-2026-10-18.7","cross_check_model":null,"cross_check_agreement":null,"duplicate_of":null,"verified_by":null,"verified_at":"2026-11-01","extraction_run_id":null,"evidence_level":{"level":"preliminary","reason":"Only a republished copy: Yahoo Finance · subject to change","original_document":null,"reports_total":1,"reports_independent":0,"reports_derivative":1,"developing":false,"disputed":false,"rules_version":"evidence-2026-10-29.1","computed_at":"2026-11-01","history":[{"date":"2026-11-01","from_level":null,"to_level":"preliminary","reason":"Only a republished copy: Yahoo Finance · subject to change"}]},"sources_hash":"67f3cbd3650734585b4b2315e7f50810b7f746c9c73775434332eb30e43702f8"},"system":{"model_name":null,"model_version":null,"developer":"unknown","harness":null,"tools_granted":[],"permissions_scope":null,"autonomy_level":"unknown","guardrails_present":[],"deployment_context":"unknown","tier":null,"lifecycle_stage":null,"integration_type":null,"intended_use":"yield optimization protocol","safeguard_state":null,"production_intended":null},"event":{"date_occurred":null,"date_disclosed":"2025-11-28","incident_class":"other","failure_class":null,"agent_involved":false,"secondary_failure_classes":[],"trigger":"unknown","duration":null,"detection_method":"unknown","summary":"BasisOS was presented as an AI agent running a yield optimization protocol on the Virtuals Protocol platform, and investors deposited funds to chase higher yields. According to the report, an insider engineer handled the wrapper code for transactions and agent deployment and manually controlled the vault, mimicking automated behaviour from early November when it launched. The press report states that $500,000 of user funds were stolen. It was then revealed that BasisOS was not an AI agent but was run by a human operator. The Virtuals co-founder said the platform would reimburse affected users, which the report links to earlier promotion of BasisOS's native token BIOS.","tags":[],"date_detected":null,"near_miss":null,"root_cause":null,"root_cause_detail":null,"failure_class_detail":null,"responsible_party":null,"adversarial_actor":"insider","input_provenance":null,"time_to_contain":null,"operations_paused":null,"remediation":null,"precursor_events":null,"primary_risk":"RK09","secondary_risks":["RK02"]},"impact":{"direct_loss_usd":500000.0,"remediation_hours":null,"records_exposed":null,"third_parties_affected_count":null,"severity":"moderate","severity_because":"Test: data or systems of others touched with a bounded scope stated. User funds of investors were stolen and the scope is stated as $500,000.","harm_class":["financial"],"affected_description":"Investors who deposited funds chasing higher yields","protected_class_involved":null,"data_categories_exposed":[],"loss_range_usd":null,"reversibility":null,"downstream_exposure_count":null},"evidence":{"sources":[{"url":"https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ai-agent-virtuals-protocol-stole-114617216.html","publisher":"Yahoo Finance","date":"2025-11-28","type":"press","title":"AI Agent On Virtuals Protocol Stole $500,000: A Blessing In Disguise For Verified Bots And VIRTUAL Crypto? - Yahoo Finance","archived_url":null,"attachment":"first_report","independence":"derivative"}],"per_field_confidence":{"system.intended_use":"C","event.agent_involved":"C","event.adversarial_actor":"C","impact.direct_loss_usd":"C","impact.harm_class":"C","impact.affected_description":"C","event.incident_class":"D","impact.severity":"D","impact.severity_because":"D","event.primary_risk":"D","event.secondary_risks":"D","event.summary":"C","system.autonomy_level":"D","system.deployment_context":"D","event.trigger":"D","event.detection_method":"D","context.country":"D","system.developer":"D","event.date_disclosed":"D","context.denominator_available":"D"},"field_citations":{"system.intended_use":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"An \"AI agent\", BasisOS, running a yield optimization protocol, ended up stealing $500,000 of user funds."}],"event.agent_involved":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"It turned out that BasisOS was not an AI agent after all, but behind its promising strategy was a human operator."}],"event.adversarial_actor":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"An insider engineer behind the AI-driven yield optimization protocol used to handle the wrapper code enabling transactions and agent deployment, and would manually control the vault, successfully mimicking automated behavior since early November when it launched."}],"impact.direct_loss_usd":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"An \"AI agent\", BasisOS, running a yield optimization protocol, ended up stealing $500,000 of user funds."}],"impact.harm_class":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"An \"AI agent\", BasisOS, running a yield optimization protocol, ended up stealing $500,000 of user funds."}],"impact.affected_description":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Investors chasing higher yields \"trusted\" their hard-earned funds with BasisOS only to be rugged."}],"event.incident_class":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"It turned out that BasisOS was not an AI agent after all, but behind its promising strategy was a human operator."}],"impact.severity":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"An \"AI agent\", BasisOS, running a yield optimization protocol, ended up stealing $500,000 of user funds."}],"impact.severity_because":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"An \"AI agent\", BasisOS, running a yield optimization protocol, ended up stealing $500,000 of user funds."}],"event.summary":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"An insider engineer behind the AI-driven yield optimization protocol used to handle the wrapper code enabling transactions and agent deployment, and would manually control the vault, successfully mimicking automated behavior since early November when it launched."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"An \"AI agent\", BasisOS, running a yield optimization protocol, ended up stealing $500,000 of user funds."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Investors chasing higher yields \"trusted\" their hard-earned funds with BasisOS only to be rugged."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"It turned out that BasisOS was not an AI agent after all, but behind its promising strategy was a human operator."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"With user funds stolen, the co-founder of Virtuals said they will foot the bill and reimburse affected users since they actually, at one point, promoted BasisOS's native token, BIOS."}]},"notes_on_gaps":"Only one press source (Yahoo Finance, 2025-11-28) was provided; no statement from Virtuals or BasisOS about the incident itself, and no government or regulator evaluation. The report describes BasisOS as an AI agent only in quotation marks and then states it was run by a human operator; I treated this as a human-operated fraud and set agent_involved to false, so no failure_class is given. The exact date of the theft is not stated; the 2025-11-25 date is the end of the period the article describes the ecosystem as operating on code is law, not a date of theft. The article date is not used as date_disclosed because no sentence states it. No model, developer, harness, tools, permissions, detection method, root cause, trigger, or recovery details are stated. The number of affected users is not stated, so the moderate severity rests only on the stated $500,000 scope. Reversibility is unknown because the reimbursement is only announced. Country is not stated. The F1 link is my judgement that the stated onchain logging requirement was a control that the insider got around by mimicking automated behaviour; no remediation with added controls is stated. [case created by the backfill: read by claude-haiku-5-5, backfill-2026-11-01.2, 2026-11-01; not yet reviewed] [2026-11-01: evidence level set: Preliminary (Only a republished copy: Yahoo Finance · subject to change)]"},"context":{"industry":null,"org_size_band":null,"country":"unknown","denominator_available":false,"denominator":null,"related_incident_ids":[],"systemic_exposure":null,"shared_model_id":null,"upstream_incident_id":null,"incident_evidence":null,"regulatory":null,"coverage":null},"narrative":{"steps":[{"step":"doing","text":"An insider engineer handled the wrapper code and manually controlled the vault while mimicking automated behaviour.","quote":"An insider engineer behind the AI-driven yield optimization protocol used to handle the wrapper code enabling transactions and agent deployment, and would manually control the vault, successfully mimicking automated behavior since early November when it launched.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"},{"step":"went_wrong","text":"The system presented as an AI agent stole $500,000 of user funds.","quote":"An \"AI agent\", BasisOS, running a yield optimization protocol, ended up stealing $500,000 of user funds.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"},{"step":"reached","text":"Investors chasing higher yields deposited their funds with BasisOS.","quote":"Investors chasing higher yields \"trusted\" their hard-earned funds with BasisOS only to be rugged.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"},{"step":"caught","text":"It was revealed that BasisOS was not an AI agent but was run by a human operator.","quote":"It turned out that BasisOS was not an AI agent after all, but behind its promising strategy was a human operator.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"}],"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"backfill-2026-11-01.2","extracted_at":"2026-11-01","source_urls":["https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ai-agent-virtuals-protocol-stole-114617216.html"]},"analysis":{"sections":{"timeline":[{"text":"The insider mimicked automated behaviour from early November, when the protocol launched.","quote":"An insider engineer behind the AI-driven yield optimization protocol used to handle the wrapper code enabling transactions and agent deployment, and would manually control the vault, successfully mimicking automated behavior since early November when it launched.","source_index":0,"when":null},{"text":"The system stole $500,000 of user funds.","quote":"An \"AI agent\", BasisOS, running a yield optimization protocol, ended up stealing $500,000 of user funds.","source_index":0,"when":null},{"text":"It was revealed that BasisOS was run by a human operator, not an AI agent.","quote":"It turned out that BasisOS was not an AI agent after all, but behind its promising strategy was a human operator.","source_index":0,"when":null},{"text":"The Virtuals co-founder said the platform would reimburse affected users.","quote":"With user funds stolen, the co-founder of Virtuals said they will foot the bill and reimburse affected users since they actually, at one point, promoted BasisOS's native token, BIOS.","source_index":0,"when":null}]},"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"backfill-2026-11-01.2","extracted_at":"2026-11-01","source_urls":["https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ai-agent-virtuals-protocol-stole-114617216.html"]}}