WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥� A U.S. official told The Associated Press on Tuesday that one of had identified vulnerabilities in highly sensitive and secure U.S. government computer systems during a testing exercise.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter, said Anthropic had teamed up with U.S. intelligence agencies to conduct tests using the company’s . It had identified certain vulnerabilities within hours, but that does not mean the model was able to exploit them within that time, the official said.
The official said the testing was done through an , which brought together tech giants and other companies in hopes of securing the world鈥檚 critical software from 鈥渟evere鈥� fallout that the Mythos model could pose to public safety, national security and the economy.
Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia had briefly mentioned the testing during a June 11 hearing before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Warner had said, 鈥淭his tool broke into almost all of our classified systems, not in weeks but in hours.鈥� He attributed the information to the head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, who is Gen. Joshua Rudd.
The NSA declined to comment on the matter in an email. An Anthropic spokesman also declined to comment.
Despite the recent cooperation between Anthropic and U.S. agencies to test for vulnerabilities, tensions between the California company and the Trump administration have been growing. Anthropic over how the U.S. military would use its AI, while the administration has restricted the use of some of Anthropic鈥檚 models.
The administration requiring Anthropic to prevent foreign nationals from using its latest artificial intelligence models, known as Fable 5 and Mythos 5. Anthropic released Fable widely earlier this month. That model is a limited version of the more advanced Mythos, to which the company has tightly limited access due to cybersecurity fears.
The directive came 10 days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to establish a framework for the federal government to vet the national security risks of the most advanced for up to a month before their public release. Participation by AI developers would be voluntary, the order said.
Anthropic said it disabled the models for all of its customers with the administration’s directive. The AI giant said it did not believe the steps taken by the government were warranted by the concern it flagged about a potential security issue.
A group of cybersecurity executives has to lift its directive, saying the move could help U.S. adversaries more than it hurts them. More than 100 cybersecurity experts and leaders from companies including Adobe and Nvidia told the government in a letter that Anthropic鈥檚 Mythos models are 鈥渜uite good鈥� at finding flaws in software and weaponizing exploits 鈥� but they are 鈥漬ot uniquely good at these tasks.”
Many of the letter鈥檚 signatories said they regularly use other foundation and open-source models for security audits and training. The letter said it is dangerous to take away the best cyber defense capabilities 鈥渨ithout a good reason鈥� when America鈥檚 adversaries are rapidly advancing.
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