Anthropic is integrating the CVP and Project Glasswing into a single offering, with three levels of access to its most capable AI models.

The post Anthropic Introduces 3-Tier Cyber Verification Program for AI Access appeared first on SecurityWeek.

AI systems like Anthropic’s Project Glasswing and Microsoft’s MDASH are aiding in the discovery of vulnerabilities, filling the ever-growing pool of defects that defenders have to address before exploitation occurs. Yet, through the first half of 2026, these vulnerabilities were no more or less likely to be exploited than all vulnerabilities disclosed during that period, VulnCheck said in a report Tuesday. 

Concerns remain high about AI-discovered vulnerabilities fueling more attacks, but VulnCheck’s review of exploitation data shows that those fears are unfounded, at least so far. 

Patrick Garrity, security researcher at VulnCheck and report author, identified 1,061 vulnerabilities attributed to AI-assisted discovery during the first six months of the year. Of those vulnerabilities discovered by AI, 14 ( 1.3%) were exploited in the wild, a breakdown that aligns with the exploitation rate researchers observed across all vulnerabilities during the same period. 

“While AI-assisted vulnerability discovery clearly has value for both attackers and defenders, the data does not suggest that AI discovered vulnerabilities are inherently more likely to be exploited than those found through traditional methods,” Garrity wrote.

While AI’s contribution to actively exploited vulnerabilities was muted in the first half of the year, it’s too soon to assume that trend will continue. Moreover, none of these major vulnerability-hunting models were running for that full period. Project Glasswing rolled out in April, while Microsoft’s MDASH and OpenAI’s Daybreak were both unveiled in May.

The upward trend in Microsoft’s monthly Patch Tuesday indicates how much the floodgates might open through the remainder of the year as AI models discover more vulnerabilities. The company’s July security update contained an all-time-record of 622 vulnerabilities, besting the previous record-breaking June update with 206 vulnerabilities.

VulnCheck’s state of exploitation report also found that vulnerabilities were exploited much faster after CVE publication, speeding up from an average of 120 days in 2025 to 80 days during the first half of the year.

The intelligence firm also determined which technology categories were actively exploited most often. Content management systems accounted for nearly one-third of the 495 known exploited vulnerabilities VulnCheck identified during the first half of 2026. Network edge devices were responsible for almost 14%, followed by operating systems at nearly 9%, server software at 8%, and AI products — an emerging attack surface — at almost 6%.

The post AI-assisted security tools are finding more bugs, but the threat level has not changed appeared first on CyberScoop.

2026 has turned out to be the year when predictions about AI-powered cyberattacks, long hypothesized as a potential risk associated with AI improvement, seem to be coming true. New models have capabilities on par with the best human hackers, marking a pivotal window of opportunity in both AI and cybersecurity policy. This is a transitional period where new technologies are pushing existing American cybersecurity infrastructure to the brink. The real question isn’t whether cybersecurity still matters, but rather: How will the risks that AI introduces be managed before they outpace defenses, and who will step up to lead this challenge?

Attempts to control access to models with powerful cybersecurity capabilities, such as the federal government’s export controls (and their subsequent revocation) on Anthropic’s Mythos and Fable models, can only ever be a temporary solution. As with previous generations of AI models, other companies will soon catch up and develop models with Mythos-level capabilities. OpenAI was already hot on Anthropic’s heels with its GPT-5.5 model; more recently, Chinese lab Z.ai released its open-weight GLM-5.2 model, which early research suggests may be on par with Anthropic and OpenAI’s latest models when it comes to cybersecurity. Controlling AI is nearly impossible when foreign companies race to build more powerful models and release them publicly, so anyone with sufficient computing power can modify them for their own purposes.

The only long-term solution is to invest in defense. 

The problem is that defensive efforts haven’t kept up with the pace of AI progress. The federal government cut resources to key agencies like CISA and redistributed their authorities. This created a gap that AI companies have filled by taking on responsibilities that should be government-led. Some examples are Anthropic’s Project Glasswing and OpenAI’s Patch the Planet initiative, which aim to shore up critical infrastructure providers and open-source software libraries. AI companies have some incentives to invest in defense, both to improve public relations and strengthen software supply chains that they also rely on—but only to a certain extent. Unlike the public sector, they are incentivized to limit liability and blowback associated with irresponsible corporate behavior, not to secure the nation or its citizens. It’s a good thing that OpenAI and Anthropic have publicly committed to improving U.S. cyber defense. However, they are only positioned to help with one part of a very large problem. 

AI companies shouldn’t be expected to singlehandedly coordinate U.S. cyber defense, because many of the most urgent fixes have nothing to do with AI. Right now, AI companies can use their most powerful models to find software vulnerabilities and write patches. This is undoubtedly important, but the real challenge is making sure patches actually work and deploying them to key systems without causing problems. This is especially true for critical infrastructure, which relies on systems that are fragile, understaffed, and required to run continuously. 

AI companies bear responsibility for cyber defense, especially given the threats their own technologies create. But this responsibility is shared with other companies and the government.  Critical infrastructure owners and operators, government agencies, and corporations all need a trustworthy source of information to judge the evolving risk landscape and to outline the options to reduce that risk. Traditionally, the federal government has played the role of an information clearinghouse, receiving intelligence from both the public and private sectors and releasing guidance to benefit various stakeholders. Responding to and recovering from cyberattacks has traditionally been the government’s job. It should stay the government’s job, not become an AI company responsibility. 

There is no question that cyberattacks, whether powered by AI or not, will happen in the future. Leaders should strengthen our defenses by doing the following: measuring our exposure to attack, testing how systems perform under attack, and shortening recovery times. AI companies have introduced new threats and should help address them, but they can’t replace the government’s role. So far, the federal government has only reacted to AI and cyberthreats instead of planning ahead. What we need is real long-term cybersecurity strategy, not quick-fixes like blocking individual model releases. 

Everyone sees the threat coming—the question is whether or not we have the will to do anything about it before it’s too late.

Jessica Ji is a senior research analyst at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), where she works on the CyberAI Project.

Andrew Lohn is a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), where he works on the CyberAI Project.

The post Why blocking AI models won’t stop the cyber threats they create appeared first on CyberScoop.

Artificial intelligence platforms may be just as susceptible to social engineering as human beings, but they are proving remarkably good at finding security vulnerabilities in human-made computer code. That reality is on full display this month with some of the more widely-used software makers — including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and Oracle — fixing near record volumes of security bugs, and/or quickening the tempo of their patch releases.

As it does on the second Tuesday of every month, Microsoft today released software updates to address at least 118 security vulnerabilities in its various Windows operating systems and other products. Remarkably, this is the first Patch Tuesday in nearly two years that Microsoft is not shipping any fixes to deal with emergency zero-day flaws that are already being exploited. Nor have any of the flaws fixed today been previously disclosed (potentially giving attackers a heads up in how to exploit the weakness).

Sixteen of the vulnerabilities earned Microsoft’s most-dire “critical” label, meaning malware or miscreants could abuse these bugs to seize remote control over a vulnerable Windows device with little or no help from the user. Rapid7 has done much of the heavy lifting in identifying some of the more concerning critical weaknesses this month, including:

• CVE-2026-41089: A critical stack-based buffer overflow in Windows Netlogon that offers an attacker SYSTEM privileges on the domain controller. No privileges or user interaction are required, and attack complexity is low. Patches are available for all versions of Windows Server from 2012 onwards.
• CVE-2026-41096: A critical RCE in the Windows DNS client implementation worthy of attention despite Microsoft assessing exploitation as less likely.
• CVE-2026-41103: A critical elevation of privilege vulnerability that allows an unauthorized attacker to impersonate an existing user by presenting forged credentials, thus bypassing Entra ID. Microsoft expects that exploitation is more likely.

May’s Patch Tuesday is a welcome respite from April, which saw Microsoft fix a near-record 167 security flaws. Microsoft was among a few dozen tech giants given access to a “Project Glasswing,” a much-hyped AI capability developed by Anthropic that appears quite effective at unearthing security vulnerabilities in code.

Apple, another early participant in Project Glasswing, typically fixes an average of 20 vulnerabilities each time it ships a security update for iOS devices, said Chris Goettl, vice president of product management at Ivanti. On May 11, Apple shipped updates to address at least 52 vulnerabilities and backported the changes all the way to iPhone 6s and iOS 15.

Last month, Mozilla released Firefox 150, which resolved a whopping 271 vulnerabilities that were reportedly discovered during the Glasswing evaluation.

“Since Firefox 150.0.0 released, they have been on a more aggressive weekly cadence for security updates including the release of Firefox 150.0.3 on May Patch Tuesday resolving between three to five CVEs in each release,” Goettl said.

The software giant Oracle likewise recently increased its patch pace in response to their work with Glasswing. In its most recent quarterly patch update, Oracle addressed at least 450 flaws, including more than 300 fixes for remotely exploitable, unauthenticated flaws. But at the end of April, Oracle announced it was switching to a monthly update cycle for critical security issues.

On May 8, Google started rolling out updates to its Chrome browser that fixed an astonishing 127 security flaws (up from just 30 the previous month). Chrome automagically downloads available security updates, but installing them requires fully restarting the browser.

If you encounter any weirdness applying the updates from Microsoft or any other vendor mentioned here, feel free to sound off in the comments below. Meantime, if you haven’t backed up your data and/or drive lately, doing that before updating is generally sound advice. For a more granular look at the Microsoft updates released today, checkout this inventory by the SANS Internet Storm Center.