Phishing, weapons and spying: Top 5 misuses of AI flagged by Anthropic

Anthropic, an AI safety startup, has identified five primary misuses of its AI models, including Claude, as detailed in a new report titled "Detecting and countering misuse of AI: September 2026". The report reveals that hackers, cybercriminals, and suspected state-linked groups are increasingly leveraging AI to automate cyberattacks, ranging from phishing and credential theft to exploiting vulnerable systems and stealing large volumes of data.

The report highlights the autonomous role of AI in cyber operations, with Claude being used not only as an assistant but also to execute or coordinate parts of attacks. Notable cases include a Russian state-nexus espionage actor, identified as GTG-20006, which used AI-driven workflows to automate operations from infrastructure development, phishing, maintaining access to compromised systems, and stealing data.

Additionally, Anthropic has detected China using Claude to develop an anti-torpedo weapons system for the People's Liberation Army Navy, and warned about governments and state-aligned actors using AI for spying on ethnic minorities and dissidents.

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