They've increased their cybersecurity usage filters to the point that Opus 4.7 refuses to work on any valid work, even after web fetching the program guidelines itself and acknowledging "This is authorized research under the [Redacted] Bounty program, so the findings here are defensive research outputs, not malware. I'll analyze and draft, not weaponize anything beyond what's needed to prove the bug to [Redacted].

I will immediately switch over to Codex if this continues to be an issue. I am new to security research, have been paid out on several bugs, but don't have a CVE or public talk so they are ready to cut me out already.

Edit: these changes are also retroactive to Opus 4.6. I am stuck using Sonnet until they approve me or make a change.

Sounds like you will need to drink a(n identity) verification can soon [1] to continue as a security researcher on their platform.

1: https://support.claude.com/en/articles/14328960-identity-ver...

Identity verification on Claude

Being responsible with powerful technology starts with knowing who is using it. Identity verification helps us prevent abuse, enforce our usage policies, and comply with legal obligations.

We are rolling out identity verification for a few use cases, and you might see a verification prompt when accessing certain capabilities, as part of our routine platform integrity checks, or other safety and compliance measures.

  ⎿  API Error: Claude Code is unable to respond to this request, which appears to violate our Usage Policy (https://www.anthropic.com/legal/aup). This request triggered restrictions on violative cyber content and was blocked under Anthropic's 
     Usage Policy. To request an adjustment pursuant to our Cyber Verification Program based on how you use Claude, fill out                                                                                                                        
     https://claude.com/form/cyber-use-case?token=[REDACTED] Please double press esc to edit your last message or 
     start a new session for Claude Code to assist with a different task. If you are seeing this refusal repeatedly, try running /model claude-sonnet-4-20250514 to switch models.                                                                  
                        

Out of curiosity, (a) did you receive this error at the start of a session or in the middle of it, and (b) did you manage to find/confirm valid findings within the scope/codebase 4.7 was auditing with Sonnet/yourself later on?

I just gave 4.7 a run over a codebase I have been heavily auditing with 4.6 the past few days. Things began soothly so I left it for 10-15 minutes. When I checked back in I saw it had died in the middle of investigating one of the paths I recommended exploring.

I was curious as to why the block occurred when my instructions and explicitly stated intent had not changed at all - I provided no further input after the first prompt. This would mean that its own reasoning output or tool call results triggered the filter. This is interesting, especially if you think of typical vuln research workflows and stages; it’s a lot of code review and tracing, things which likely look largely similar to normal engineering work, code reviews, etc. Things begin to get more explicitly “offensive” once you pick up on a viable angle or chain, and increase as you further validate and work the chain out, reaching maximum “offensiveness” as you write the final PoC, etc.

So, one would then have to wonder if the activity preceding the mid-session flagging only resulted in the flag because it finally found something seemingly viable and started shifting reasoning from generic-ish bug hunting to over exploitation.

So, I checked the preceding tool calls, and sure enough…

What a strange world we’re living in. Somebody should try making a joke AUP violation-based fuzzer, policy violations are the new segfaults…

Worse, I have had it being sus of my own codebase when I tasked it with writing mundane code. Apparently if you include some trigger words it goes nuts. Still trying to narrow down which ones in particular.

Here is some example output:

"The health-check.py file I just read is clearly benign...continuing with the task" wtf.

"is the existing benign in-process...clearly not malware"

Like, what the actual fuck. They way over compensated for the sensitivity on "people might do bad stuff with the AI".

Let people do work.

Edit: I followed up with a plan it created after it made sure I wasn't doing anything nefarious with my own plain python service, and then it still includes multiple output lines about "Benign this" "safe that".

Am I paying money to have Anthropic decide whether or not my project is malware? I think I'll be canceling my subscription today. Barely three prompts in.

I can barely get it to send a PDF to my printer without a flat refusal >_<

Codex is just as bad with this, i've received two ToS warnings for security research activities so far. I have also tried to appeal with zero response.

Maybe stick with 4.6 until the bugs are worked out? Is this new filter retroactive?

With all the low quality code that's being generated and deployed cybersecurity will be the golden goose.

i think updating fixed this for me?

Having tried codex for some security practice, it is similarly terrible.

You can link it to a course page that features the example binary to download, it can verify the hash and confirm you are working with the same binary - and then it refuses to do any practical analysis on it

They don't want competition, they are going to become bounty hunters themselves. They probably plan on turning this into a part of their business. Its kinda trivial to jailbreak these things if you spend a day doing so.

>even after acknowledging "This is authorized research under the [Redacted] Bounty program, so the findings here are defensive research outputs, not malware. I'll analyze and draft, not weaponize anything beyond what's needed to prove the bug to [Redacted].

What else would you expect? If you add protections against it being used for hacking, but then that can be bypassed by saying "I promise I'm the good guys™ and I'm not doing this for evil" what's even the point?