Transfer Stations in Plain Sight: Enumerating the API Resale Layer Described in the CISA Distillation Advisory

The joint advisory AA26-251A from NSA, CISA and the FBI describes a gray market of API proxies known as "transfer stations" that resell access to U.S. frontier models at a fraction of the official price, stripping metadata that would identify operators.

What a transfer station looks like externally

Most resale panels are ordinary web applications. Open-source gateway projects dominate this space, and their default pages carry recognizable strings in page titles. This makes them textbook targets for external asset discovery: our ZoomEye check on 2026-09-22 found that title="new-api" matched 56,800 assets, http.body="One-API" matched 37,499 assets, and title="One API" matched 22,827 assets.

Why operators leave them visible

A reseller needs customers to reach the panel, so the storefront is deliberately public. Only the upstream credentials are hidden. This asymmetry means the resale layer is easier to enumerate than the abuse itself.

Practical uses of this visibility

• Payment processors and hosting providers can identify panels that violate their terms of service.

• Model providers can correlate panel availability with abuse reports on their own APIs.

• Researchers can track how quickly new panels appear after a provider tightens enforcement, a dynamic the advisory describes as automated failover between pathways.

Limitations

A matching panel is evidence of gateway software, not proof of resale of a specific provider's access. Counts were collected on 2026-09-22 and describe matching assets, not confirmed violations.

References

• CISA Advisory AA26-251A: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa26-251a
• ZoomEye: https://www.zoomeye.ai