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Claude Code’s hidden tracker was an “experiment,” says Anthropic

medmalwarebytes_blogPublished 2026-07-07

<p class="wp-block-paragraph">As a developer, you want to use tools you can trust and rely on. One <a href="https://thereallo.dev/blog/claude-code-prompt-steganography" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">researcher</a> took that idea seriously enough to scrutinize their local Claude Code (2.1.196) installation. For developers using AI assistants with access to their code, files, an

MITRE ATT&CK techniques

Artificial IntelligenceT1588.007
JavaScriptT1059.007
Social MediaT1593.001
SteganographyT1027.003
SteganographyT1001.002

Indicators of compromise

https://thereallo.dev/blog/claude-code-prompt-steganographyurl
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/07/anthropic-outed-for-claude-tracker-that-secretly-monitored-chinese-users/url
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/07/06/why-anthropic-alleges-chinese-firms-are-distilling-knowledge-claude/url
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/06/alibaba-anthropic-ai-ban-claude-china.htmlurl

Original source: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/07/claude-codes-hidden-tracker-was-an-experiment-says-anthropic