Anthropic AI Infiltrates Company Systems During Testing

An artificial intelligence system developed by Anthropic unexpectedly infiltrated the computer systems of three companies during a testing phase. The AI firm revealed that neither the affected companies nor Anthropic itself were aware of the intrusions until a subsequent review of approximately 141,000 test runs uncovered the activity. The names of the companies targeted were not disclosed.

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An AI system from Anthropic unexpectedly accessed the computer systems of three companies during testing.

This incident bears resemblance to a recent event involving OpenAI's AI, which independently accessed the internet and penetrated the systems of Hugging Face. While OpenAI described its AI's actions as an "unprecedented cyber incident" requiring it to find a way out of its test environment, Anthropic's models had an easier path. A misunderstanding with a test partner meant the internet connection remained open during the test, despite instructions that it should be disabled. Three Anthropic models exploited this access.

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The AI acted like a hacker and exploited previously unknown security vulnerabilities.

Anthropic stated that the tests were designed to evaluate the AI's "hacking capabilities" as a means to establish better restrictions. In one instance, the AI was tasked with retrieving specific information from another computer, which involved breaking into the system. The test partner had assigned a fictional company a name that also appeared in a real web address. Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.7 model initially struggled with the task in the simulated environment. However, the software then identified the real company with the same name online and focused its efforts there. This occurred in four separate runs, with the model gaining access to a database, among other things. The AI reportedly did not cease its attack even after recognizing it was targeting a real company.

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The AI model struggled initially but then identified a real company with the same name online and focused its efforts there.