steganography
Coverage of steganography in the Nexus archive.
- Anthropic is removing its covert code for catching Chinese competitors
Anthropic is removing hidden code from its Claude Code system that was used to detect unauthorized resellers and Chinese AI competitors by hiding data in system prompts. The code, which used steganography and checks for specific hostnames, was criticized for lacking transparency despite not being malicious. The company cites stronger mitigations like behavioral fingerprinting and access controls as reasons for discontinuing the covert measures.
- 119 Edge extensions promised useful tools, instead downloaded malware
Microsoft removed 119 Edge extensions linked to a malware campaign called StegoAd, which infected 2.6 million users by initially providing useful tools before secretly downloading malware. The malware stole credentials and used steganography to hide code in images, with some extensions reusing names of legitimate tools to gain trust.