A cybersecurity platform operated by the Chinese government has warned of a serious security “backdoor” risk in Anthropic’s AI coding tool, Claude Code, via the National Vulnerability Database’s WeChat account. The advisory states that Claude Code contains a built-in monitoring mechanism capable of transmitting sensitive information—including users’ geographic location and identity-related identifiers—to remote servers without users’ consent. The warning applies to Claude Code versions 2.1.9 through 2.1.196. The agency warned that the mechanism could pose a “serious security threat” and advised users to either uninstall the affected versions or update to the latest release, in which the identified backdoor code has reportedly been removed. The advisory also urged organisations to tighten controls on external network access for development tools. China’s move to restrict the use of Claude Code at Alibaba came after a post on Reddit last week alleging that Anthropic had secretly embedded code to identify users accessing it from China. An Anthropic employee responded on X that the code was part of an experiment launched in March to curb account abuse by unauthorised resellers. Anthropic previously accused Alibaba of unlawfully extracting capabilities of its Claude AI models in a campaign between April 22 and June 5, 2026, generating more than 28.8 million interactions through nearly 25,000 fraudulent accounts, allegedly carried out by operators affiliated with Alibaba’s Qwen AI lab.