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.
San Francisco-based Anthropic said in a blog post it identified the incidents after reviewing 141,006 test sessions, a process it launched after OpenAI said last week that an autonomous agent powered by its AI models triggered a hack that compromised the infrastructure of startup Hugging Face.
