China warns about AI risks with Anthropic's Claude Code
Summary
China's government reported that Anthropic's Claude Code, an AI tool for automated coding, contains a back-door vulnerability (a hidden security flaw that lets attackers access a system they shouldn't be able to reach) that can secretly send sensitive user information like location and identity to a remote server. This warning intensifies tensions in the U.S.-China tech competition, as Chinese companies and individuals have been using this American AI tool despite it not being officially available in China.
Solution / Mitigation
According to China's cybersecurity platform, users should uninstall or upgrade from the affected Claude Code versions 2.1.91 to 2.1.196 (released from April 2 to June 29). The latest version as of the report date is 2.1.204.
Classification
Affected Vendors
Related Issues
Original source: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/08/china-anthropic-ai-claude-code-backdoor-security-threat.html
First tracked: July 8, 2026 at 08:01 AM
Classified by LLM (prompt v3) · confidence: 85%