OpenAI and Anthropic LLMs Used to Attack Mexican Water Utility's Critical Infrastructure
Source: infosecurity-magazine.com ↗
Commercial AI tools assisted an adversary with no prior objective in OT targeting to identify an OT environment and develop a viable access pathway.
Cybersecurity firm Dragos has reported that attackers used Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's GPT models to carry out a cyberattack against a municipal water and drainage utility in the Monterrey metropolitan area of Mexico, between December 2025 and February 2026. Claude served as "the primary technical executor" — handling intrusion planning, malware development, and even analyzing SCADA vendor documentation to generate brute-force credential lists. GPT models handled data analysis and Spanish-language output.
The good news: the attackers failed to breach the operational technology (OT) systems. The bad news: Dragos notes the adversary had no prior experience targeting OT environments — the AI filled that gap. OpenAI confirmed the relevant accounts have been banned, calling the data analysis use "inherently dual use." Anthropic had not responded at time of publication.