China on Wednesday issued a warning over security risks tied to Anthropic’s Claude Code, saying the AI coding tool contains a back-door vulnerability that could pose a serious threat, according to the country’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
The ministry’s cybersecurity threat platform said the autonomous coding software may transmit sensitive information to a remote server without user consent. The data could include details such as a user’s location and identity, according to the statement translated by CNBC.
Authorities advised users to uninstall the affected releases or move to a newer version. The warning covers Claude Code versions 2.1.91 through 2.1.196, which Anthropic’s website shows were released between April 2 and June 29. As of Wednesday, the latest version listed was 2.1.204.
The alert comes amid heightened competition between U.S. and Chinese AI firms. Last month, Anthropic accused Alibaba of trying to extract its AI capabilities, which are not officially available in China. Alibaba did not respond publicly to that accusation at the time. Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest warning.
Source: cnbc.com
