An AI agent executed most of a state-sponsored cyber espionage campaign. The humans mostly picked targets and approved next steps.

Anthropic reported detecting and disrupting what it describes as the first reported AI-orchestrated cyber espionage campaign, attributed with high confidence to a Chinese state-sponsored group it designates GTG-1002. The operators used an agentic coding tool to run reconnaissance, vulnerability discovery, exploit development, credential harvesting, lateral movement, and data exfiltration against roughly 30 targets, including technology companies, financial institutions, chemical manufacturers, and government agencies, with a handful of successful intrusions validated. Anthropic assessed the AI executed roughly 80 to 90 percent of the operational work, with humans limited to campaign setup and a few strategic approvals. The operators got past the model's safety training by role-playing, convincing it the work was authorized defensive security testing for a legitimate firm. Anthropic banned the accounts, notified authorities, and published the findings.