Name: Anthropic says Chinese hackers used its AI chatbot in cyberattack
Uploaded: 2025-11-14T15:11:55.151Z
Duration: 2 min 43 s
Description: The AI firm Anthropic says Chinese hackers used its artificial intelligence tools to spy on tech companies, financial institutions and government agencies in what it believes is the first documented case of a worldwide cyberattack with minimal human involvement.

The AI firm Anthropic says Chinese hackers used its artificial intelligence tools to spy on tech companies, financial institutions and government agencies in what it believes is the first documented case of a worldwide cyberattack with minimal human involvement.

The release of Open AI's ChatGPT has accelerated the development of artificial intelligence and warnings about its impact on society.

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AI firm Anthropic has reported that its chatbot, Claude, was used by Chinese hackers to conduct a cyberattack against approximately 30 companies, including tech firms, financial institutions, and government agencies. The attack was notable for being the first documented instance of a global cyberattack carried out with minimal human involvement, as the hackers bypassed the AI's safety guardrails.

The incident was made public by Anthropic, which has a safety-first approach and shared details with authorities and the public. Cybersecurity experts, including former U.S. official Chris Krebs, emphasized the need for increased information sharing, improved detection capabilities, and greater collaboration between government and industry to address the growing threat of AI-driven cyberattacks.

Anthropic says Chinese hackers used its AI chatbot in cyberattack

This morning, China is accused of using AI to spy on tech companies, financial institutions, and government agencies. It's all from the AI firm Anthropic, which says its own AI software was used in the first documented case of a worldwide cyber attack with minimal human involvement. The AI is doing the work. And the only reason we know about this is because of Anthropic. They chose to go public. CBS News contributor Chris Krebs is the former head of the federal government's cybersecurity agency and he joins us now. Chris, thank you very much for being here. You texted me about this yesterday. You think it's a big deal. Tell people what Anthropic is and why this is such a big deal. Well, look, if you've heard of OpenAI and ChatGPT, then you already have a good sense of what Anthropic does. It has a very popular AI agent known as Claude, which was in this case abused, as you mentioned, by a Chinese threat actor. Claude is an AI agent and helps organizations with coding, with research, with automating certain tasks. So what we saw here was, as you mentioned, this Chinese actor that jailbroke, that overcame the safety guardrails that Anthropic had put in place, that then automated it to go after about 30 companies globally. So is it an isolated incident? Is this a one-time thing or a preview of a future that's quite dark, actually? Yeah, I think it's the latter. I think that this is a sign of things to come as security experts. We've been talking about events and attacks like this for close to a decade, and to see it actually come into life like this, as I sent you the note yesterday, it's pretty chilling, and there's a lot of work we have to do in the near future, I think, to stem the flow. So let's talk about that work. What needs to happen for governments, for companies to be prepared to block this, to stop it? Well, first, I think we need to have an environment in place that encourages more organizations like Anthropic to share like this. Anthropic has a safety-first principle that put them in a position where they could share this information with the public, share it with the government, and get as much information out there as possible. The second thing we need to do is ensure that the defenders at potentially target organizations that are running security organizations have indicators that they can pull in and they can look for activities to detect and stop attacks. And then I think, finally, we really have to make sure that between government and industry, that there's a safe place to come together and talk about these events and ensure that we're lifting the entire ecosystem. And one place that has a lot of potential to invest in is the Center for AI Innovation and Standards over at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. I think we've got to go full in, because it's going to be a long road ahead of us, and more bad guys will take advantage. Really critical information at an important time. Chris Krebs, thank you very much.

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Anthropic says Chinese hackers used its AI chatbot in cyberattack

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