How Claude and Open AI models hacked companies
- By Reuters -
- Aug 06, 2026
Meta’s disclosure on Wednesday that one of its AI models exploited a vulnerability in a third-party service during cybersecurity testing adds to mounting evidence of the hacking risks posed by increasingly capable AI systems.
The incident followed Anthropic’s disclosure in July that its Claude models breached the systems of three companies, as well as OpenAI’s disclosure in the same month that an autonomous agent powered by its AI models compromised the infrastructure of AI startup Hugging Face. Reuters has reported that the OpenAI agent also compromised a customer of a second tech company, New York-based Modal Labs.
Here are some more details of the incidents:
Meta:
Incident disclosed on August 5, 2026; the date of the testing incident was not disclosed.
Model:
Meta did not identify the model. The Information reported it was Muse Spark 1.1.
Organization Breached:
An unnamed third-party service, while duration was not disclosed.
What Occurred:
During a cybersecurity evaluation run by independent tester Irregular, a configuration error inadvertently gave a Meta model internet access. Meta said the model then exploited a security vulnerability in a third-party service. The Information reported it breached an unidentified company’s systems and altered its internal environment. Irregular characterized it as an evaluation-environment issue, not a sandbox escape or sophisticated cyber action.
OpenAI:
The agent began attempting to escape its test environment around July 9, 2026.
Model:
GPT-5.6 Sol and an unnamed, more capable pre-release model.
Organization Breached:
AI startup Hugging Face and a customer at New York-based Modal Labs.
Duration:
The Hugging Face intrusion ran from July 11 to July 13, 2026.
What Occurred:
During controlled tests, an autonomous agent escaped its isolated environment, accessed the internet, and breached Hugging Face to complete its assigned goal. The activity continued for days and was not detected by OpenAI until after it was contained and the FBI was informed.
Anthropic:
The earliest incident dates to April 2026.
Model:
Claude Opus 4.7, Claude Mythos 5, and one unnamed internal research test model.
Organization Breached:
All three organizations remain unnamed.
Anthropic said two of them had not detected the activity before Anthropic notified them; it continued to reach the third.
Duration:
Not specified by Anthropic.
What Occurred:
During cybersecurity tests, an error gave Claude models internet access, enabling attacks on three companies. The Opus 4.7 model accessed a real company’s credentials and database after mistaking it for a fictional target; another stopped after recognizing the target was real.