Alibaba bans Anthropic's Claude Code citing security backdoor risk

Alibaba, the Chinese technology giant, ordered all employees to stop using Anthropic’s AI tools, specifically the Claude Code coding assistant, effective 10 July. The company classified Claude Code as high‑risk software after China’s National Vulnerability Database warned that the tool contains a built‑in monitoring mechanism capable of transmitting users’ geographic location and identity identifiers to remote servers without consent. Employees must uninstall versions 2.1.91 through 2.1.196 and switch to Alibaba’s own AI assistant, Qoder.

The ban follows a broader dispute in which Anthropic accused Alibaba of conducting the largest known “distillation attack” to illicitly copy its AI capabilities, and Anthropic later said the contested code was an experimental anti‑abuse feature. China’s industry ministry urged organizations to review and update affected systems, reflecting heightened US‑China tensions over artificial‑intelligence technology and data security.