Story perspectives

Anthropic Says Chinese Firms Launched 151M Claude Distillation Attacks

By Drooid · Sep 11, 2026, 10:43 PM UTC · How we work

Summary

Story summary

Anthropic says Chinese firms launched massive illicit distillation attacks on Claude.
The attacks produced over 151 million exchanges between May and July 2026.
Alibaba carried out the largest operation that generated nearly 3 million daily exchanges and 151 million total.
DeepSeek performed more than 12 million distillation attacks over two weeks in July 2026.
Anthropic blocked accounts and added safeguards after detecting sensitive personal, corporate and state-affiliated data.

History

Historical Context

Whistleblower disclosures in July 2019 that Apple’s Siri recorded users without permission led to a 2024 $95 million settlement covering a decade of data, tightening privacy rules. This legacy of large-scale data misuse fuels current global calls for stricter AI governance as regulators confront new model-theft incidents, echoing Apple’s earlier privacy overhaul.

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Story summary

Anthropic says Chinese firms launched massive illicit distillation attacks on Claude.
The attacks produced over 151 million exchanges between May and July 2026.
Alibaba carried out the largest operation that generated nearly 3 million daily exchanges and 151 million total.
DeepSeek performed more than 12 million distillation attacks over two weeks in July 2026.
Anthropic blocked accounts and added safeguards after detecting sensitive personal, corporate and state-affiliated data.

1 / 2