Ravie LakshmananSep 11, 2026Artificial Intelligence / Cyber Operations
Anthropic has warned that cybercriminals and state-sponsored hackers alike are using its Claude models for cyber attacks, weapons design, propaganda, and mass surveillance between December 2025 and August 2026.
The threat actors, which the artificial intelligence (AI) company has branded Generative Threat Groups (GTGs), span state-sponsored groups, financially motivated criminals, commercial spyware vendors, state propaganda institutions, and politically motivated individuals.
"The cybersecurity skills of AI models means that AI has collapsed the labor and tooling gap that used to separate well-resourced, state-sponsored operations from individual operators," Anthropic said. "The use of AI went beyond simple questions and responses from a chatbot but rather involved the use of multi-agent frameworks executing reconnaissance, exploitation, and data exfiltration."
Among the notable cases highlighted by Anthropic is the development of an AI-assisted workflow by a Russian state-sponsored threat actor it calls GTG-20006, which aligns with broader reporting linking the cluster to Midnight Blizzard (aka APT29 and Cozy Bear). Some of the other AI-enabled cyber campaigns highlighted by Anthropic in its 154-page report include -
