OpenAI, Anthropic and 100+ Companies Warn AI Cyberattacks Will Surge Within Months

OpenAI published an open letter signed by more than 100 companies. The letter warns that AI-enabled cyberattacks will become far more widespread and sophisticated in the coming months.

Signatories stretch across technology, banking, insurance, and semiconductors. Anthropic, Microsoft, Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS), CrowdStrike, Cloudflare, and Palo Alto Networks all added their names.

What the OpenAI Letter Asks For

The letter identifies four groups that need to act. Every organization should treat cyber defense as a leadership priority and fix its highest-risk weaknesses. 

Cybersecurity vendors should make AI-powered defense deployable for critical infrastructure operators. Governments should coordinate response and support defense for hospitals, water utilities, and local authorities. 

Frontier AI companies should provide model access, funding, and training to under-resourced defenders.

“Today’s AI advances are already giving defenders new ways to fix weaknesses that have accumulated for years. If we act decisively, we can use the defenders’ window to make our digital world much more secure,” the letter reads.

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this is a critically important moment for cyber defense with AI; there is not much time to act.we are happy if you want to work with us or any of our competitors or partners, but please take this moment seriously.only an urgent and intense collective response will work.

— Sam Altman (@sama) August 27, 2026

What the Current Threat Landscape Looks Like 

Evidence behind the tech giant’s forecast has already arrived this year. Taiwanese threat intelligence firm TeamT5 found Chinese state-affiliated groups doubled their attack volume after adopting DeepSeek and other open-source models.

Cost drove that choice rather than capability. Anthropic reached a broader conclusion in June. Its study of 832 banned accounts found the share of medium-risk or higher attackers rose from 33% to 56% within a year.

The firm also found that AI now handles privilege escalation and lateral movement, work that previously required technical skill. That erodes the link between an attacker’s expertise and the damage they can cause.

South Korean firm Genians found Kimsuky, a unit under North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau, testing local AI tools.

TRM Labs scored criminal AI adoption at 54 out of 100 this year, up from 28 in 2024. The firm logged 201 crypto hacks in the first half of 2026, up from 83 a year earlier.

These are some of the many incidents researchers logged in 2026. The letter argues that today’s AI advances can still be turned into lasting security improvements that benefit everyone.

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