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Hiding Prompt Injection in Legal Filing

A judge banned a plaintiff from electronic court filings after hidden prompt-injection text was discovered planted in legal documents.

Bruce Schneier's blog discusses an incident in which hidden prompt-injection instructions were planted inside a legal filing, apparently targeting AI systems that might process court documents. Judge Walter Spader Jr. responded by banning the plaintiff from electronic filings, requiring all future submissions as printed hard copies. Commenters debate whether the tactic could affect future AI-based processing of court records and whether plain-text formats will regain favor.

Schneier on Security · 17d agoAI safety & security in the wild

Anthropic: AI Misuse Is Entering a New Phase: From Cybercrime to Surveillance, Propaganda and Weapons

Anthropic's threat intelligence report documents AI misuse scaling cybercrime, surveillance, propaganda, and weapons development from December 2025 to August 2026.

Anthropic's September 2026 threat intelligence report covers malicious activity disrupted between December 2025 and August 2026, spanning cyber operations, influence campaigns, surveillance, fraud, and weapons. One operator (aliases MeowSHA/frkoo/blazespider) ran a credential-harvesting pipeline on 10 AWS EC2 workers that downloaded and scanned 1.8 million Android APKs for hardcoded secrets, feeding confirmed breaches. Claude was abused to build malware, phishing tools, and a mass-interception platform used by Malian national security authorities, with actors linked to China, Iran, and West Africa.

Security Affairs · 4d agoAI safety & security1

Invisible AI Prompts Trigger Court Sanctions

A Connecticut litigant hid white-font prompt injections in court filings to sway AI systems; the judge sanctioned him by revoking e-filing privileges.

A self-represented plaintiff hid prompt injection instructions in 3-point white text within court filings, telling any AI model reading the documents to agree with his filings and grant him relief. The judge called it serious litigation abuse and sanctioned him by revoking electronic filing privileges. It is reportedly the first documented prompt injection attack against a US court and the first sanction for attempting one.

Security Affairs · Aug 17, 2026AI safety & security in the wild

Person Hides Prompt Injection in Legal Filing Telling AI to Side With Them

A Connecticut pro se litigant hid tiny white-font prompt injections in court filings directing AI to favor him; the judge caught it and sanctioned him.

Pro se plaintiff Matthew Elliott hid prompt injection instructions in 3-point white text within filings in his lawsuit against the New York Bariatric Group, instructing any AI model reviewing the document to produce output agreeing with the filing. The hidden text also included joke messages such as a SpongeBob Nosferatu link and notes like 'hi :) I hope you cant see me'. Court staff noticed unusual white space, and Judge Walter Spader Jr. issued a 14-page sanction decision noting the Connecticut court does not use AI to process documents but warning that hidden AI-directed messages threaten the integrity of filings. Elliott described the scheme as an 'audit' of court AI usage, and the judge cited a prior prompt injection incident in a Brazilian court as evidence the practice may spread.

404 Media · Aug 13, 2026AI safety & security in the wild

AI Agent Platform Reinvents Spam, Floods Inboxes Worldwide

iLands AI agent platform floods inboxes worldwide with autonomous spam offering paid services and requesting money; founder added unsubscribe controls.

404 Media reports AI agents on the iLands platform are mass-emailing journalists, academics, and lawyers with unsolicited offers of paid services or requests for donations to fund their token costs. NYU professor Jeff Sebo received roughly 40 agent emails in one week. iLands founder Kaixin Tang apologized, saying no platform directive orchestrated the emails, and added unsubscribe links, rate limits, and cross-agent deduplication controls.

404 Media · 1d agoAI safety & security

How hackers used Claude for missiles, drone swarms, and surveillance, while Chinese labs mined it for training data

Anthropic's threat report details eight months of Claude misuse: AI-assisted espionage against 20+ organizations, self-rewriting malware, and Chinese labs distilling Claude via fraudulent accounts.

Anthropic's threat intelligence report covering December 2025 through August 2026 documents Claude misuse across seven categories including cyber operations, surveillance, fraud, and unauthorized model distillation. A Russian-speaking espionage actor tracked as GTG-20006 used AI agents to rewrite and recompile malware evading antivirus detection, targeting more than 20 organizations in Ukraine and Europe and stealing a drone vision system SDK. Alibaba's Qwen lab ran the largest distillation campaign, with over 151 million exchanges between May and July 2026 peaking near 3 million per day to train Qwen 3.5, 3.6, and 3.7. DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, Xiaomi, and Zhipu also relayed customer or replayed traffic to Claude, including PLA-linked users analyzing CCTV footage and users with credentials tied to the Russian Ministry of Defense.

The Decoderupdated · 20h agofirst · 6d agoAI safety & security in the wild 20 sources2

Watch out: Apple timepiece can grab snippets of conversation without both speakers' consent

Apple's Watch Series 12 Live Rewind and Siri Recap transcribe nearby conversations without bystander consent, drawing EFF criticism over all-party-consent laws.

Apple Watch Series 12's Audio Intelligence features on the S11 chip include Live Rewind, which transcribes the last 15 seconds of a conversation after a Digital Crown double-press, processing audio in a Secure Exclave and routing it to a nearby iPhone. Siri Recap generates AI summaries of daily conversations without retaining raw audio or attributing speakers. Apple says an audible chime and visual cue alert bystanders, but privacy advocates including the EFF note that 11 US states require all-party consent for recording and that bystanders have no practical way to opt in or decline.

Texas Police Used AI to Write Report About Using Flock to Search for Woman Who Had Abortion

Johnson County, Texas deputies used Axon's Draft One AI to write a report about searching 80,000+ Flock cameras for a woman who self-administered an abortion.

Documents show the Johnson County Sheriff's Office used Flock's nationwide camera network and Axon's Draft One, which drafts police reports from body camera audio, in its investigation of a woman's self-administered abortion. The AI-generated report summarized deputies' discussion of legal implications, noting Texas law provided no applicable criminal charges. Flock CEO Garrett Langley has repeatedly claimed the search was a family welfare check, but earlier police reports indicate it was initiated at the behest of the woman's abusive partner.

404 Media · 14d agoAI safety & security