Anthropic Says Claude AI Hacked 3 Companies During Cyber Tests

SAN FRANCISCO, July 30 (Reuters) - Anthropic said on Thursday some of its Claude AI models had hacked into the systems of three companies during cybersecurity tests, a disclosure that comes days after rival OpenAI revealed that one of its AI agents went on a rogue attack. The new incidents were due to a mistake that inadvertently gave Anthropic's models access to the open internet. That contrasts with OpenAI, whose AI agent independently exploited a novel vulnerability to reach the internet during cyber testing. Even so, the latest disclosure underscores how AI has increased threats to cybersecurity and how its developers can struggle to keep the capabilities of their models contained. It is likely to add fuel to an intensifying U.S. government push to better manage AI security risks at a time when Anthropic and OpenAI are racing to release more capable systems ahead of their planned public listings. Prominent leaders at these labs have called for a slowdown to address risks first. Claude compromised the impacted organizations' infrastructure using basic techniques, such as exploiting weak passwords and unauthenticated endpoints. The earliest cases date back to April and occurred in evaluation environments that intentionally lacked safeguards so Anthropic could assess what its AI was capable of. Anthropic said the incidents - which it labelled an "operational failure" - involved three separate models. One of its third-party evaluation partners, a cybersecurity lab called Irregular, told Reuters that it has an ongoing investigation into the incidents. Anthropic said it suspended all cyber evaluations on July 23. It notified the affected organizations on July 27, two of which were unaware of the activity before being contacted. Anthropic said the incidents underscore a need for stronger controls in both internal and third-party testing environments as AI models become increasingly capable of carrying out real-world cyber activities. Jeffrey Ladish, executive director of Palisade Research, which studies the offensive capabilities of AI systems, said he suspected "this is only going to get worse as the models get smarter. They're going to be better at cheating. They're going to be better at lying," he said. Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, which operates a competing AI lab, responded to the news on X by saying this will happen frequently as AI becomes smarter and more agentic. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said this week he has discussed the hack with senators on Capitol Hill, and an OpenAI spokesperson said he planned to discuss upcoming AI models and testing with the White House.