Anthropic details misuse of AI models for biological weapons research and cyber espionage
The artificial intelligence company Anthropic says it has identified attempts to use its models for malicious activity that could support the development of biological and conventional weapons, BBC World Service and BBC News reported.
The details in Anthropic’s latest threat intelligence report, however, did not reveal which country the threats came from. Such reports have become a regular feature across the AI industry as firms seek to demonstrate how they identify and disrupt attempts to misuse their models.
The warnings have prompted calls to action, with US Senator Bernie Sanders demanding a pause on advanced AI development and a ban on artificial superintelligence.
US President Donald Trump has so far rejected such fears, saying on 10 September he was concerned “if we don’t win AI, we’re going to be put in a very bad position”.
Claude, Anthropic’s AI model was also used by actors linked to a Russia-based cyber espionage campaign and by an Iranian propaganda institution, according to its report.
Anthropic has also accused Chinese AI firms of trying to replicate Claude’s capabilities.
The lengthy report lists cases in which suspected state-sponsored groups, criminals, spyware vendors, state propaganda institutions and politically motivated individuals misused its technology.
“Malicious use” of its Claude Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus models was disrupted between December 2025 and August 2026, it said.
None of the misuse cases involved Claude Fable or the powerful Mythos-class models, with the exception of one instance of distillation – the process for training smaller AI models using larger, more expensive models.
In addition to detecting the use of its models for cyber and influence operations, surveillance, scams and fraud, and weapon development, Anthropic said it had blocked scientists who used its AI in ways that could support biological weapons development.
The report highlighted “five case studies of actors using our models in ways that could support biological weapons development”.
Biological misuse, it said, is “one of the most serious risks of frontier AI model”. Without the correct safeguards, such capabilities “could have catastrophic consequences”, Anthropic said.
“The same information that can be used to develop a biological weapon could also be used to develop, for example, a vaccine or a cure for a disease,” Anthropic said.
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