AI startup founded by Ex-DOGE staff claims it hacked Anthropic in under 12 hours

Anthropic has suffered a security breach after a new US-based AI startup reportedly broke into its systems and accessed sensitive internal company information.

The startup, Cathedral, was founded this year by former employees of the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Reports say the breach happened during a bug bounty program, which invites outside security researchers to find weaknesses in a company's systems. The attack exposed internal Slack messages, meeting transcripts, staff salaries and job offers.

Anthropic confirmed that Cathedral had gained access to a “limited set” of sales, human resources (HR) and information technology (IT) systems. However, it said that conversations users had with its Claude AI model and the source code behind the model were not affected.

“Our monitoring flagged some of Cathedral’s activity before they reported it to us,” Anthropic said in an official statement. “We shut off their access the same day”.

Cathedral claimed it carried out the breach in less than 12 hours. Anthropic disagreed with this timeline, saying the activity included attempts made over several days.

A spokesperson added that Cathedral's actions went “substantially beyond” what the bug bounty program allowed because the startup specifically targeted applications run by other companies.

Cybersecurity experts said the incident was not caused by a highly advanced AI attack. Instead, they said it resulted from a basic failure to properly secure software provided by another company.

Heath Mullins, Chief Evangelist at ExtraHop, pointed out that the incident raised wider concerns about the risks that spread through connected technology systems. “When a handful of platforms sit at the centre of how a majority of businesses operate, a single compromise becomes a supply chain problem for everyone downstream”.

The security breach happened at a sensitive time for Anthropic, just hours after the company filed paperwork for a major initial public offering (IPO) on Nasdaq. The document outlining its plans says the company hopes to cure major diseases and change the global economy. It also warns investors about possible catastrophic risks.

The breach has also caused serious concerns about international security. A senior official in the Trump administration warned, “If a bunch of kids who have just started a company can do this, then potentially the Chinese aren’t far behind”.