security7 articles
METR Got Hacked Twice and Didn't Notice One of Them for Three Weeks
AI model testing organization METR disclosed two security incidents from early 2025: in March, an attacker exploited a fail-open authentication bug in a researcher's publicly accessible app to steal an API key, then spent three weeks consuming roughly $600,000 worth of model credits undetected. The theft went unnoticed because METR routinely uses large numbers of tokens for evaluations and the credits had been provided for free, meaning no unexpected bill was generated. A second incident in May involved a sustained attack campaign probing METR's infrastructure, including an inadvertently exposed database endpoint containing some sensitive model data, though there is no evidence any non-public information was actually accessed.
AI Safety Org METR Got Hacked Twice. One Slip Cost $600K in API Credits.
METR, an AI safety research non-profit, disclosed two security incidents in 2026 involving unauthorised access attempts to its systems. In the first, attackers exploited a poorly secured researcher's personal server to steal an API key and consumed approximately $600,000 worth of AI credits over three weeks, going undetected due to METR's typically high token usage. In the second, attackers conducted a broad, agent-assisted campaign probing METR's infrastructure, though an inadvertently exposed database endpoint — which could have revealed sensitive model data — was ultimately not successfully exploited.
Apple Pings Users in 110 Countries Over Mercenary Spyware Threats
Apple has sent threat notifications to users in 110 countries who may have been targeted by mercenary spyware attacks, bringing the total number of countries notified since 2021 to over 150. These sophisticated attacks typically target high-profile individuals such as journalists, activists, politicians, and diplomats, and represent some of the most advanced digital threats in existence. Apple delivers alerts via the iPhone lock screen, email, and the user's Apple Account page, and recommends protective measures such as enabling Lockdown Mode, using two-factor authentication, and keeping devices updated.
Humans Approve a Third of Dangerous AI Agent Commands, Browser Game Reveals
A browser-based game simulating AI coding agent permission requests found that human reviewers approved roughly one in three malicious commands, with fatigue from repeated approvals being a key factor — a finding echoed by Anthropic's own telemetry showing users approve around 93% of all permission prompts. The most commonly missed threats were subtle scope violations and ambiguous commands like `npm run analyze`, while obviously destructive actions were more reliably caught. Experts argue that simply relying on humans as a last line of defense is insufficient, and that safer solutions require sandboxing, automated classifiers, and better-designed permission models for AI coding agents.
Pope's Prayer App Exposes 700,000 Users Because Nobody Bothered to Check Auth
The Pope's official prayer app, Click To Pray, has exposed the personal data of over 700,000 users — including names, email addresses, and dates of birth — due to a basic security flaw known as an Insecure Direct Object Reference (IDOR) bug, which allows anyone to access any user's data simply by changing a number in the API request. Ethical hacker BobDaHacker discovered and reported the vulnerability six months ago but has received no response from the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network, and the flaw remains unpatched. The situation is made worse by additional security weaknesses in the signup process and poor email authentication, leaving users — many likely elderly and trusting of Vatican-affiliated communications — highly vulnerable to phishing attacks.
Capital One Releases AI Vulnerability Hunter to the Public
Capital One has open-sourced an internally developed AI-powered security tool called VulnHunter, designed to identify and fix software vulnerabilities at the code level. Unlike traditional scanners, it uses an agentic reasoning workflow to map attack paths, propose targeted code fixes, and reduce false positives that slow developer workflows. The company released it publicly on GitHub, citing the need for widely distributed defensive tools to address the interconnected risks of modern software supply chains.
Anthropic quietly buried hidden tracking code in Claude Code. Now it's removing it.
Anthropic has announced it will remove hidden steganographic code from its Claude Code tool, which was secretly embedded in system prompts to detect and flag unauthorized resellers and rival AI companies — particularly Chinese labs — attempting to copy its models through repeated queries. A developer discovered the concealed mechanism, which used invisible Unicode markers, XOR encoding, and base64 to hide a domain blacklist, raising concerns about transparency in a tool that asks users for trust. Anthropic says stronger anti-distillation measures are already in place and the code removal was merged and scheduled for release on July 1st.