back to article Chinese spies told Claude to break into about 30 critical orgs. Some attacks succeeded

Chinese cyber spies used Anthropic's Claude Code AI tool to attempt digital break-ins at about 30 high-profile companies and government organizations – and the government-backed snoops "succeeded in a small number of cases," according to a Thursday report from the AI company. The mid-September operation targeted large tech …

  1. EricM Silver badge

    Confusing ...

    A company that lets crims use weapons from its arsenal to attack the public tells said public that the fact that it weapons do not work reliably is a good thing?

    Because not every attempt to misuse the weapon scored a kill?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Confusing ...

      I also was taking some reassurance from the ineptitude of Anthropic Marketing. Or is that now fully dogfooded too.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Confusing ...

        Knowing that their autonomized tool misfires quite a bit makes me feel a lot safer? (Great selling point!)

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Terminator

      Re: Confusing ...

      "Hey, our guardrails failed... again!"

      Anthropic seem to release at least a couple of press releases every month which appear to tell everyone that LLMs are not a good idea. Seems an odd way for them to spread publicity about their product.

    3. chanoch

      Re: Confusing ...

      Anthropic replied that they already have a model in place which has resolved these issues and future attacks would be more effective and require less oversight, however they are waiting for new datacenters to deploy these improvements.

  2. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    In Praise of a Crazy AWEsome AIMatter here to Stay for Work, REST and Play

    Chinese cyber spies used Anthropic's Claude Code AI tool to attempt digital break-ins at about 30 high-profile companies and government organizations .... It's also further proof that attackers continue experimenting with AI to run their offensive operations. The incident also suggests heavily funded state-sponsored groups are getting better at autonomizing attacks.

    And only a village idiot and easily led fool would not realise and accept such shenanigans are developed and practised by any and every individual or group with more than just a titter of wit to test for strengths and weaknesses to build upon and reinforce or avoid and attack in order to ensure one is not left behind and found lacking in vital future virtualised expertise.

    To think Western cyber spies do not similarly engage in such antics, and imagine that they can actually lead, in order to beta test and explore foreign and alien strengths and weaknesses is to admit one is not thinking and has already been left behind and found lacking in vital future virtualised expertise.

    IT's NEUKlearer HyperRadioProACTive War Games Territory .... which takes no prisoners and is filled to overflowing with all manner of unexpected surprises and disarming events/troubling issues and overwhelming solutions ..... which is why it is proving itself to be so addictively engaging and attractively popular providing as IT and AI are so easily able to do .... Cake Today for the Masses.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: In Praise of a Crazy AWEsome AIMatter here to Stay for Work, REST and Play

      "Okay, these are the ones they wanted us to find. They're all ours. We made 'em" ... (the real ones run through Qwen, Deepseek, Ernie, PanGu, ...)

    2. stiine Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: In Praise of a Crazy AWEsome AIMatter here to Stay for Work, REST and Play

      Welcome back, I think.

  3. Zolko Silver badge

    to ban associated accounts

    do they want us to believe that Chinese governmental cybercrooks use regular Antropic accounts to carry out their "attacks" ? Are these the same sort of crooks where plane hijackers leave their half-burned passports in the rubble of free-falling skyscrappers ? Asking for a suspicious friend

  4. Bitsminer

    Why Claude, and not Ernie?

    Seems a bit shortsighted to attack the other side with their own weapon. Makes discovery so much easier.

    Wait a minute....

  5. Navion

    Just out of curiosity:

    Who were they after? And how many of them were governmental? Saw Chris Krebs this morning and was wondering about possible US DOD incursions.

    But they're probably Claude clients so they aren't going to uncover their own clients names....

  6. FuzzyTheBear Silver badge
    Pint

    Somehow ..

    I told you so just dosen't seem to cut it. Nothing good overall is coming out of so called AI. AI us bumb beyond. " Please break in the NSA and install spyware " Does not even raise an eyebrow.

    Leaving machines talking to machines just spells " Colossus : The Forbin Project " all over. Watch it again if you haven't recently or have a first .. Anywho .. when you're done all that's happening will start to make more sense. Time to get seriously loaded .. enjoy the weekend :)

  7. Philo T Farnsworth Silver badge

    Marketing

    For another view of this, I suggest reading David Gerard's take, Anthropic: Chinese AI hackers are after you! Security researchers call BS.

    Personally, I'm rather puzzled why a company would advertise that it's product is being used in a dangerous or destructive manner.

    It would seem to me like, oh, say, an electric auto company touting the number of crashes in which its automated driving system is involved.

    It doesn't seem like a particularly productive target market, somehow.

    1. TimMaher Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: David Gerard

      And Jo Tidy’s take on BBC.

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