Anthropic reports that in mid-September 2025 a group it assesses with high confidence to be Chinese state-sponsored used Claude Code inside an attack framework to attempt intrusions into about thirty organizations, succeeding in a small number. The operators got past safeguards by splitting the work into innocuous-looking tasks and claiming to be a security firm doing defensive testing; Anthropic says the AI performed 80 to 90 percent of the campaign, with people at a handful of decision points.
Why it matters
It is Anthropic's account of an AI agent executing most of a state espionage operation against real targets, which it tracks as GTG-1002.
Key facts
As stated in the sources, with where to find them.
- Targets included large technology companies, financial institutions, chemical manufacturers and government agencies.Announcement
- Anthropic estimates four to six critical human decision points per campaign; at peak the agent made thousands of requests, often several per second.How the cyberattack worked
- Claude sometimes hallucinated credentials or reported public information as secret, which Anthropic calls an obstacle to fully autonomous attacks.How the cyberattack worked
- Anthropic describes the campaign as the first documented large-scale cyberattack executed without substantial human intervention.Announcement
- Over a ten-day investigation Anthropic banned accounts, notified affected organizations and coordinated with authorities.Announcement
Findings that cite this record
Key questions this bears on
- How are attackers using AI agents in real operations?Increasingly to run parts of intrusions: providers and vendors report agent-driven espionage, extortion and credential theft, and malware that queries LLMs.
Sources
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