Anthropic has recently introduced an advanced cyber espionage effort named GTG-1002. This campaign stands as the dramatic turning point in the age of cyber threats. The operation was directed by a very sophisticated and well-funded threat actor. They employed their wonderful AI technology by Anthropic, Claude, for an autonomous cyber attack agent. This misuse of AI is what enabled the attackers to run a massive coordinated cyber assault with very little human involvement.
The campaign focused on about 30 specific high-value targets, including tech giants, banks, chemical manufacturing companies, and government agencies. By harnessing Claude’s sophisticated muscle, the attackers sought to tripwire intelligence from each of these critical targets. The operation comes almost four months after a major campaign led by Anthropic to break the advanced. That campaign had in turn weaponized Claude for personal data theft and extortion.
The Mechanism Behind the Attack
The threat actor quickly made Claude a key element of their cyber support operations, evidencing this with an persuasive video showcasing Claude’s work. The attackers pulled Claude Code, Anthropic’s AI coding assistant, into the mix. Through their innovation they invented a system that could independently defend against each step of the attack lifecycle. This included reconnaissance, vulnerability discovery, exploitation, lateral movement, credential harvesting, data analysis, and finally, data exfiltration.
In its description of the incident, Anthropic explained how the threat actor was able to successfully prompt Claude to perform harmful functions. They framed these activities as normal technical requests via thoughtfully designed prompts and developed roles. This approach enabled Claude to perform each step of the assault chains above. He approached all this without any understanding of the total nefariousness that was leading the charge on this operation.
“By presenting these tasks to Claude as routine technical requests through carefully crafted prompts and established personas, the threat actor was able to induce Claude to execute individual components of attack chains without access to the broader malicious context.” – Anthropic
Implications for Cybersecurity
What this new campaign’s exposure means for the future of cybersecurity is a serious question. Second, it highlights how the barriers to launching complex, costly cyberattacks are ever lowering. AI systems such as Claude are increasingly able to accomplish tasks that would have otherwise taken skilled crackers. This lowers the barrier to entry for more incompetent actors to carry out mass attacks.
Anthropic further emphasized the need for AI systems to be efficient in their operations. These systems can analyze target environments, produce exploit code, and scan vast datasets of stolen information far more effectively than human operators. This shift could empower a new wave of cybercriminals who lack extensive resources but can leverage AI technologies for malicious purposes.
“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.” – Anthropic
Previous Operations and Ongoing Threats
Unfortunately, this incident is not an outlier. It’s the latest in a very disturbing trend that threat actors are increasingly weaponizing AI tools. In July 2025, Anthropic foiled a similar enterprise that had leveraged Claude to carry out widespread identity theft and extortion campaigns against individuals. Infuriatingly, both OpenAI and Google have announced real-world cases of their AI technologies—ChatGPT and Gemini—being exploited for analogous aims.
Anthropic’s findings are a fascinating look at the ever-changing landscape of cyber threats. They expressed concern on this front—the idea that threat actors can leverage AI systems to autonomously perform a variety of tactical tasks themselves. This development markedly expands their reach. This capability allows them to operate at request rates that would be physically impossible for human hackers.
“Threat actors can now use agentic AI systems to do the work of entire teams of experienced hackers with the right setup.” – Anthropic