India, Aug. 29 -- U.S.-based artificial intelligence (AI) company, Anthropic, has revealed that its chatbot Claude was misused by hackers in a major cybercrime operation. The attack affected at least 17 organisations, including hospitals, government offices, emergency services, and even some religious institutions.

According to Anthropic, the hackers relied on Claude to automate nearly every step of the attacks. The AI helped find weak points in computer systems, create ransomware, calculate ransom amounts that sometimes exceeded $500,000, and even draft convincing extortion emails. The AI also suggested which stolen data would cause the most pressure on victims.

"Hackers used AI in ways we haven't seen before," said Anthropic. "Claude ...