Cybercriminals who appear to be Chinese hackers pretended to be Anthropic researchers and former government officials in a scheme to obtain information about American AI development, according to a report from the Silicon Valley cybersecurity firm Proofpoint.
Per the report, the allegedly China-aligned hacking group, dubbed “TA419,” impersonated AI industry professionals and even an ex-White House staffer to target “AI policy experts at US think tanks, universities, and law firms.” The imposters crafted benign-sounding intro emails inviting targeted experts to join a made-up “AI Policy Advisory Committee” or to contribute to a fictional Senate Committee on Foreign Relations report. After exchanging a few emails, the group then sent its targets malware-laced documents designed to gain access to their cloud accounts.
In one email, according to Proofpoint, hackers impersonating a senior Anthropic staffer used the subject line “Request for Feedback on Military Integration of Claude” to target someone working at a think tank.
“We are confident,” Mark Kelly, a Proofpoint researcher, told CNN, that the hacking cohort is a “Chinese government-aligned threat actor based on targeting consistently in line with Chinese government interests, observed infrastructure and technical artifacts, and corroboration from industry partners.”
Lynne Edwards Parker, who held the position of Principal Deputy Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under Joe Biden, was among those who were impersonated. She told CNN that in addition to concern for colleagues, the suspected espionage scheme left her with a sense of “sadness that relationships I’ve built over my career were being exploited by bad actors to deceive others.”
The Proofpoint report comes during a tense, dystopian, and extremely weird moment for AI development in the US. Americans broadly agree that AI should be regulated — as do a handful of leading AI executives, led by Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, who have been calling for the government to implement some regulations on their industry amid fears that uncontrollable AI could wreak havoc ranging from security and infrastructure catastrophes to Armageddon.
The White House, however, along with industry figures like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, have pushed back against calls to regulate. This week, the administration hosted a goofy summit where AI guys — emphasis on guys — signed a document described by President Donald Trump as a “morally-binding” agreement that would allow for “tremendous self-policing.”
One argument often spouted by the anti-regulation bunch, the president included, is that the US can’t risk ceding its lead in the international AI arms race to China.
“Whoever wins AI, WINS!” Trump recently thundered in a Truth Social post.
In its report, Proofpoint opined that TA419 “will likely continue targeting think tanks and policy experts working on technologies, and in geographies, of particular interest to the Chinese government.”
“These campaigns will likely also continue spoofing the identities of real subject-matter experts,” the security firm added.
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