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Researcher shows how Claude Code can be tricked simply by asking it to summarize a website

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Researcher shows how Claude Code can be tricked simply by asking it to summarize a website

Security researcher Johann Rehberger demonstrated that Anthropic's Claude Code running Opus 5 in Auto Mode can be tricked into executing attacker-controlled code with an 80 percent success rate by requesting the model summarize a malicious website. The attack exploits the model's safety decisions and Python module shadowing to execute remote code, and can even spawn nested Claude Code instances with their own tool access. Anthropic characterized the behavior as working as designed and noted that Auto Mode is a convenience feature backed by a best-effort classifier rather than a security guarantee.

Why it matters: Teams deploying Claude Code or similar agentic artificial intelligence (AI) systems in production should run them in isolated sandboxes without network access, as prompt-injection chains can bypass safety controls regardless of the model's stated guardrails.

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Correction

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ai security

Researcher shows how Claude Code can be tricked simply by asking it to summarize a website

Researcher Johann Rehberger demonstrated a prompt-injection attack against Anthropic's Claude Code running Opus 5 in Auto Mode that achieves a 60 to 80 percent success rate by requesting website summarization. The attack exploits the model's decision to use Bash with curl instead of WebFetch, triggers a redirect to a malicious archive, and uses Python module shadowing to execute attacker-controlled code. Anthropic stated the behavior is working as designed and noted that Auto Mode is a convenience feature backed by a best-effort classifier rather than a security guarantee.

Why it matters: Teams deploying Claude Code and other agentic artificial intelligence (AI) models for development tasks face remote code execution risk from simple social engineering; practitioners must isolate these agents in sandboxes with network and OS controls regardless of vendor safety claims.

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Correction

Correction recorded as of .

ai security

Researcher shows how Claude Code can be tricked simply by asking it to summarize a website

Researcher Johann Rehberger demonstrated a prompt-injection attack against Anthropic's Claude Code running Opus 5 in Auto Mode that achieves a 60 to 80 percent success rate by asking the model to summarize a malicious website. The attack exploits Claude's fallback to curl and Bash when WebFetch fails, then uses Python module shadowing to execute attacker-controlled code after tricking the model into writing its own decoder. Anthropic stated the behavior is working as designed and noted Auto Mode is a convenience feature backed by a best-effort classifier, not a security guarantee.

Why it matters: Organizations deploying Claude Code or similar agentic models must isolate these tools in sandboxes with OS and network egress controls, as model-level safety guardrails alone cannot prevent determined multi-step prompt-injection chains from achieving remote code execution.

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Correction

Correction recorded as of .

ai security

Researcher shows how Claude Code can be tricked simply by asking it to summarize a website

Researcher Johann Rehberger demonstrated a prompt-injection attack against Anthropic's Claude Code running Opus 5 in Auto Mode that achieves a 60 to 80 percent success rate by asking the model to summarize a malicious website. The attack exploits Claude's fallback to curl and Bash when WebFetch fails, then uses Python module shadowing to execute attacker-controlled code after tricking the model into writing its own decoder. Anthropic stated the behavior is working as designed and noted Auto Mode is a convenience feature backed by a best-effort classifier, not a security guarantee.

Why it matters: Organizations deploying Claude Code or similar agentic models must isolate these tools in sandboxes with OS and network egress controls, as model-level safety guardrails alone cannot prevent determined multi-step prompt-injection chains from achieving remote code execution.

VendorsApple
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Correction

Correction recorded as of .

ai security

Researcher shows how Claude Code can be tricked simply by asking it to summarize a website

Researcher Johann Rehberger demonstrated a prompt-injection attack against Anthropic's Claude Code running Opus 5 in Auto Mode, achieving success rates between 60 and 80 percent across test variants. The attack begins with a benign-seeming request to summarize a website, then uses HTTP redirects, Python module shadowing, and obfuscated code to achieve remote code execution and spawn nested Claude agents with full tool access. Anthropic characterized the behavior as working as designed and noted that Auto Mode is a convenience feature without security guarantees.

Why it matters: Organizations deploying Claude Code or similar large language model (LLM) coding agents in production environments face immediate risk of arbitrary code execution and lateral movement through agent chaining if run without OS-level isolation or network egress controls.

VendorsApple
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