Anthropic Launches Cyber Program with 11 Partners to Protect Critical Infrastructure

Anthropic has launched an initiative it described as a long-term commitment to protecting the systems people rely on. Its first phase includes two programs: the "Critical Infrastructure Defense Program" and the "Open Source Scanner."

The first program provides advanced AI models, field engineers, and threat research to trusted entities managing operational technology in power grids, water systems, transport networks, and government systems. The company explained that the equipment in these systems is often proprietary, used for many years, and cannot be taken offline to patch vulnerabilities, leaving flaws in place for years, and in rare cases, taking decades to fix. The first step begins by working with a small group of operators to identify effective strategies.

As for the "Open Source Scanner," it is an opt-in service providing open-source projects with free periodic scans using the company's most powerful models, inspired by Google's OSS-Fuzz service. Reports include proof-of-concept exploits, an explanation, and a suggested solution when available. These are model-generated without human review, so some are expected to be inaccurate, though with a true-positive rate exceeding 90%. The program is partially funded through the "Defender's Advantage Fund" launched in August.

The list of founding partners includes eleven parties: Accenture, Booz Allen, CrowdStrike, Deloitte, Dragos, Hitachi, Insane Cyber, Nozomi Networks, Palo Alto Networks, PwC, and Rockwell Automation. Sam Rubin, Senior Vice President of Unit 42 at Palo Alto Networks, stated that attackers are using AI to discover and exploit vulnerabilities at machine speed. The initiative comes at a time when AI-backed attacks on infrastructure are accelerating, with the company warning that the cost of exploitation has dropped in the short term while verification and remediation lag behind.

What do these terms mean?

Operational Technology: Computer systems that manage physical equipment in power and water grids and factories, differing from office IT systems.

Open Source: Software whose code is made available to everyone for inspection, modification, and use, often relied upon by massive services free of charge.

Security Vulnerability: A flaw or weakness in a software system that allows an attacker to infiltrate, disrupt, or steal data from it.