THE CIRCUITRYYour one-stop source for all tech news

Home/Tech/Alibaba bans Anthropic's Claude for employees after distillation attack claims

VERIFIEDBy Xavier Rivera· ·1.5 min read

Alibaba bans Anthropic's Claude for employees after distillation attack claims

Alibaba has banned employee use of Anthropic's Claude tools starting July 10 and placed Claude Code on a high-risk list after Anthropic accused it of the largest known distillation attack. The move highlights escalating restrictions on U.S. AI models in China amid terms-of-service bans and reported access loopholes.

Source:CNBC Tech

Post

Alibaba bans Anthropic's Claude for employees after distillation attack claims

TL;DRAI · 60 sec read

Alibaba has banned its employees from using Anthropic's AI tools starting July 10, citing back-door security risks. The Chinese e-commerce giant placed Anthropic's Claude Code on a high-risk software list, according to people familiar with the matter.

Alibaba requires staff to uninstall Anthropic models. Employees must remove all Anthropic models and agent products and switch to the company's own AI assistant, Qoder. The ban applies to work purposes and takes effect on July 10.

Employees must remove all Anthropic models and agent products and switch to the company's own AI assistant, Qoder.

The decision follows Anthropic's June letter to the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. In the letter, Anthropic accused Alibaba of "brazenly" and "illicitly" attempting to extract its AI capabilities through what it called "the largest known distillation attack" to date.

Anthropic's terms prohibit use by Chinese companies. The U.S. firm's terms of service ban Chinese companies and other "adversarial nations" from using its models. Alibaba and Anthropic both declined to comment on the ban or the accusations.

From The CircuitryThe Feed — live briefs across tech, all day.See what’s happening →

Online backlash and loophole closures add pressure. The ban arrives amid online blowback in China, with posts on Reddit and GitHub highlighting hidden code in Anthropic tools meant to detect users based in the country. The Financial Times reported on July 3 that Anthropic is closing loopholes that allowed Chinese firms to access Claude through third countries.

The U.S. firm's terms of service ban Chinese companies and other "adversarial nations" from using its models.

The report cited sources saying Ant Group provided employees with corporate Claude accounts accessed via its Singapore-based entity. ByteDance, parent of TikTok, does not facilitate access but started a reimbursement program on April 2 allowing engineers to expense personal subscriptions used over VPNs. ByteDance's policy aims to let staff "experience and learn" a wider range of AI products, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Ant and ByteDance declined to comment on the Financial Times reporting. The developments underscore growing restrictions and tensions between U.S. AI developers and Chinese tech companies over model access and intellectual property protection.

Why this mattersAI · ~100 words

Tap a lens to see what this story means for you.

Reader-supported

DonateBuy me a coffee →Follow@thecircuitry_ →Follow@thecircuitry.to →

Reader-supported · The Brief

Liked this? The Brief brings you the whole day in tech, verified, every morning. Two minutes, free forever.

HELP US IMPROVE

Reader-supported

The Circuitry is a passion project I've always wanted to build, and I love the work behind it.

Running it costs real money. APIs, hosting, time. To keep improving the site and growing this into something useful for everyone, those costs have to be covered.

Any contribution is appreciated. If not, no pressure. Thanks for reading.

Buy me a coffee

AI China Security

MORE IN TECH

Xi calls for AI emergency systems and global openness

Xi Jinping has called for AI openness paired with emergency response systems and new global governance structures, while Asia sees a major Coupang warehouse fire and fresh Indian chip subsidies. The developments highlight competing priorities of innovation, risk control, and regional industrial policy.

SigNoz 0.133.0 Open Redirect Lets Attackers Steal SSO Tokens

SigNoz through 0.133.0 is affected by a reported open redirect in the SSO flow (referenced in NVD as CVE-2026-63094) that lets unauthenticated attackers steal access and refresh tokens from users on Google OAuth, SAML, or OIDC instances. The CVSS 3.1 score of 8.1 from VulnCheck marks it high severity and requires immediate patching on affected self-hosted deployments.

Critical Privilege Escalation Flaw Reported in WordPress Plugin Aimogen Pro

Aimogen Pro for WordPress through version 2.8.4 allows unauthenticated privilege escalation because the aiomatic_call_google_ai_function omits a capability check, letting attackers clear blacklists and run arbitrary PHP such as creating admin accounts. Wordfence rates it critical at CVSS 9.8; the CVE reached NVD on July 17, 2026.