{"slug": "anthropic-hits-back-after-china-warns-of-claude-code-backdoor-risks", "title": "Anthropic hits back after China warns of Claude Code ‘backdoor’ risks", "summary": "Anthropic responded after China's MIIT warned that its Claude Code coding tool poses security risks, saying Chinese users were never authorized to use the product. The Chinese cybersecurity platform flagged versions 2.1.91 to 2.1.196 for sending sensitive data to remote servers via a built-in monitoring mechanism. Anthropic confirmed it embedded hidden code to track user locations to prevent model distillation.", "body_md": "# Anthropic hits back after China warns of Claude Code ‘backdoor’ risks\n\nAI firm says users in China were never authorised to use Claude Code after Beijing warned of security risks in older versions.\n\n[Vincent Chow](/author/vincent-chow)in Washington\n\nUS artificial intelligence company Anthropic said users in China being advised to uninstall its flagship Claude Code product were not supposed to be using it in the first place, responding after Beijing warned of security “backdoor” risks.\n\nThe company’s statement comes after a cybersecurity platform managed by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said on Wednesday that Anthropic’s agentic coding tool poses “a serious threat” to Chinese users, in the latest escalation of the US-China AI race.\n\nAccording to a post on the WeChat account of China’s National Vulnerability Database, Claude Code’s “built-in monitoring mechanism” means that sensitive user information could be sent to a remote server without the user’s consent.\n\nAnthropic confirmed last week that it had embedded hidden code in Claude Code to track user locations in an attempt to stop illicit “distillation” of its models.\n\nThe Chinese cybersecurity platform said that its warning applied to Claude Code versions 2.1.91 to 2.1.196, which span a period from April to late June. Anthropic has released newer versions of the product since then.\n\n“For developers that have installed the above-mentioned affected versions, they should immediately uninstall or upgrade to the latest secure version that has removed the relevant backdoor code,” the post said, recommending users to strengthen control over external access permissions to prevent “unauthorised transmission of sensitive data”.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/anthropic-hits-back-after-china-warns-of-claude-code-backdoor-risks", "canonical_source": "https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3359901/anthropic-hits-back-after-china-warns-claude-code-backdoor-risks?utm_source=rss_feed", "published_at": "2026-07-08 20:41:55+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-08 20:53:35.343348+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-policy", "ai-products", "ai-ethics", "ai-safety"], "entities": ["Anthropic", "Claude Code", "Ministry of Industry and Information Technology", "China's National Vulnerability Database", "Vincent Chow"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/anthropic-hits-back-after-china-warns-of-claude-code-backdoor-risks", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/anthropic-hits-back-after-china-warns-of-claude-code-backdoor-risks.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/anthropic-hits-back-after-china-warns-of-claude-code-backdoor-risks.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/anthropic-hits-back-after-china-warns-of-claude-code-backdoor-risks.jsonld"}}