Anthropic disclosed on Wednesday that it has thwarted a complex scheme that used their chatbot Claude, which was powered by artificial intelligence (AI), as a weapon to steal and extort personal information on a massive scale in July 2025.
According to the business, the actor targeted at least 17 different organizations, including those in the government, emergency services, healthcare, and religious institutions. Instead of using conventional ransomware to encrypt the stolen data, the actor threatened to make the data publicly available in an effort to coerce victims into paying ransoms that occasionally topped $500,000.
By inserting operational instructions in a CLAUDE.md file that supplied persistent context for each interaction, the actor used Claude Code on Kali Linux as a full attack platform.
According to reports, the unidentified threat actor employed artificial intelligence (AI) to a “unprecedented degree,” automating several stages of the assault cycle read more about Anthropic Disrupts AI-Powered Cyberattacks Automating Theft and Extortion Across Critical Sectors.
Get up to date on the latest cybersecurity news and enhance your knowledge of cybersecurity with our thorough coverage of the dangers, breaches, and solutions.