Anthropic is opening its Cyber Verification Program to a much wider pool of security professionals, granting vetted organizations and individual researchers access to Claude AI models with reduced safety filters. This specialized access is designed for vulnerability research, malware analysis, incident response, and penetration testing, tasks that are normally blocked by standard filters because the underlying capabilities could potentially be misused by attackers.
The program structures access into three distinct tiers to manage security risks appropriately. Defense Access is available to corporate security teams, government agencies, universities, critical infrastructure operators, open-source developers, and individual researchers. Red Team Access permits authorized attack simulations for organizations, while Specialized Access requires joint vetting with the US government to test high-stakes systems like flight controls, power grids, and banking infrastructure.
During the predecessor program known as Project Glasswing, partners identified at least 129,000 confirmed vulnerabilities between April and July 2026, with over 33,000 classified as high-severity or critical. Participating partners reported that leveraging AI capabilities significantly accelerated their security workflows by months or even years. This expanded access program matters because it equips defenders with advanced AI tools to proactively discover and patch critical system vulnerabilities at scale.