State-sponsored threat actors from China used artificial intelligence (AI) technology developed by Anthropic to orchestrate automated cyber attacks as part of a "highly sophisticated espionage campaign" in mid-September 2025.

"The attackers used AI's 'agentic' capabilities to an unprecedented degree – using AI not just as an advisor, but to execute the cyber attacks themselves," the AI upstart said .

The activity is assessed to have manipulated Claude Code, Anthropic's AI coding tool, to attempt to break into about 30 global targets spanning large tech companies, financial institutions, chemical manufacturing companies, and government agencies. A subset of these intrusions succeeded. Anthropic has since banned the relevant accounts and enforced defensive mechanisms to flag such attacks

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