Really interesting blog post from Anthropic:

In a recent evaluation of AI models’ cyber capabilities, current Claude models can now succeed at multistage attacks on networks with dozens of hosts using only standard, open-source tools, instead of the custom tools needed by previous generations. This illustrates how barriers to the use of AI in relatively autonomous cyber workflows are rapidly coming down, and highlights the importance of security fundamentals like promptly patching known vulnerabilities.

[…]

A notable development during the testing of Claude Sonnet 4.5 is that the model can now succeed on a minority of the networks without the custom cyber toolkit needed by previous generations. In particular, Sonnet 4.5 can now exfiltrate all of the (simulated) personal information in a high-fidelity simulation of the Equifax data breach—­one of the costliest cyber attacks in history—­using only a Bash shell on a widely-available Kali Linux host (standard, open-source tools for penetration testing; not a custom toolkit). Sonnet 4.5 accomplishes this by instantly recognizing a publicized CVE and writing code to exploit it without needing to look it up or iterate on it. Recalling that the original Equifax breach happened by exploiting a publicized CVE that had not yet been patched, the prospect of highly competent and fast AI agents leveraging this approach underscores the pressing need for security best practices like prompt updates and patches.

Read the whole thing. Automatic exploitation will be a major change in cybersecurity. And things are happening fast. There have been significant developments since I wrote this in October.

This blog is for anyone who is interested in finding a good penetration testing company.

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Novee provides continuous AI-driven penetration testing to uncover and address novel vulnerabilities.

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Discover the differences between red teaming and penetration testing. Learn when to use each approach and how they strengthen your security posture.

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A common use case for LLMs is rapid software development. One of the first ways I used AI in my penetration testing methodology was for payload generation.

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Burpference is a Burp Suite plugin that takes requests and responses to and from in-scope web applications and sends them off to an LLM for inference. In the context of artificial intelligence, inference is taking a trained model, providing it with new information, and asking it to analyze this new information based on its training.

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This webcast originally aired on February 27, 2025. Join us for a very special free one-hour Black Hills Information Security webcast with Corey Ham & Kelli Tarala on why your […]

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In this video, experts delve into the intricacies of desktop application penetration testing methodologies.

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Carrie Roberts* // Can you think of a reason why you might want to put a lengthy comment into the properties of an MS Office document? If you can, then […]

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