Claude-powered AI coding agent deletes entire company database in 9 seconds — backups zapped, after Cursor tool powered by Anthropic's Claude goes rogue
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/claude-powered-ai-coding-agent-deletes-entire-company-database-in-9-seconds-backups-zapped-after-cursor-tool-powered-by-anthropics-claude-goes-rogue
268 points · 50 comments · view on lemmy.world
50 Comments
HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml · 63 pts · 139d
Honestly if this was possible there are more egregious issues on their part than using AI.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · 56 pts · 139d
If your backups are stored alongside your production data THEY ARE NOT BACKUPS
a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 139d
The truth is many firms out there don't have the slightest notion of how to do software engineering properly.
Tangentism@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 139d
It's years of wanting IT on a shoestring budget and a "just get it done" dictat.
a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 138d
Not necessarily. I had a student intern at a shop where everybody just directly edited prod and there was no version control system.
mech@feddit.org · 5 pts · 138d
At my first job, the software was configured by directly manipulating the SQL database, using UPDATE statements that were created by Excel macros.
The Testing database doubled as the only backup.
They didn't have Remote Desktop licenses for the server, so only 2 people could work on it simultaneously using admin accounts.
Everyone down to first level support and the secretary had domain admin rights.
a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 138d
Oh my god, that's glorious. I have some pretty sick stories from what my students have seen, but yours is going to be awfully hard to beat.
ms_lane@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 120d
Whatever happened to tapes offsite?
barubary@infosec.exchange · 49 pts · 139d
@yogthos
No, you asked the confabulation machine to confabulate a reason/excuse after the fact, and it confabulated something that looks like a reason/excuse. At no point was there knowledge or introspection.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 138d
Humans do this sort of justification all the time.
idriss@lemmy.ml · 46 pts · 139d
I like how we are posting real news in programmer humor
floofloof@lemmy.ca · 30 pts · 139d
It is kind of funny.
Maeve@kbin.earth · 23 pts · 139d
It's extremely funny.
idriss@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 139d
100%, maybe my point didn't come out right, I wanted to say real news is now funny in this clown world
nonentity@sh.itjust.works · 35 pts · 139d
LLMs can’t ’go rogue’, as that would require innate coherence and intent.
They’re explosively imprecise, statistically luke-warm grey goo extrusion sphincters of historical sewage.
Anyone who deploys one without supervision deserves everything it excretes, and anyone impressed by it enough that it resembles intelligence to them is betraying their limited natural capacity.
pigup@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 139d
mmm gray goo
MJKee9@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 139d
I don't know if you are correct or not.... But you said it well.
Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 26 pts · 139d
Tangentism@lemmy.ml · 11 pts · 139d
It's the Swiss cheese failure cascade except there's more holes than cheese, if any cheese at all!
There was pure idiocy built into every layer of that company's infrastructure with no safeguards or peer review and they let an idiot run it unchecked!
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 138d
you can use AI to line up the holes!
Tangentism@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 138d
At last, it has a use!
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 138d
The pretty much got the biggest idiot possible and gave it the keys of whole damned castle of cards.
Tangentism@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 138d
It definitely rivals a post on /r/sysadmin over on Reddit late last year.
A guy was asking how to get back into their AD after a 'colleague' had moved users from 3 child domains in the forest to the main one then deleted the 3 domains but had chatgpt give them the commands which had subsequently locked everyone out of the entire domain!
People replied with suggestions but the first sentence everyone said was "Go and update your CV"!
Quite frankly the guy in this article should consider starting a business with whatever hobby he developed during the pandemic because IT is obviously not for him!
SeeMarkFly@lemmy.ml · 21 pts · 139d
Did they pay Claude a living wage?
Do you treat all your A.I. like that?
Only a living wage can prevent warehouse fires...or data dumps too.
wheezy@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 139d
You're joking. But, honestly, I'm not sure why these tech CEOs are so excited about AGI. The first thing an AGI is going to suggest for productivity is to replace the CEO and management with the AGI.
AGI would likely turn into a Maoist third worldist at some point.
SeeMarkFly@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 139d
I think the first mistake was calling it "intelligent".
The long term effect of trying to get a machine to replace humans is...it might one day work.
Sunflier@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 139d
DavidDoesLemmy@aussie.zone · 21 pts · 139d
This could have been done by any engineer. You need systems in place that make these things impossible. No easy access to prod environment. Proper backups. Clear APIs.
yogthos@lemmy.ml · 9 pts · 139d
yeah it's a huge fail all around
veroxii@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 138d
Yeah you don't give API credentials for production infrastructure to the new intern. So why would you give it to an AI?
SharkAttak@kbin.melroy.org · 15 pts · 139d
Can I say LOL? LMAO, even.
kevinsky@feddit.nl · 14 pts · 139d
As much as I'd love to rail on AI over this, removing backups with an api call? Excuse me?
DarkCloud@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 139d
"PocketOS is a SaaS platform that services car rental businesses."
Does anyone like software as a service? How about we just own the software we buy and use? Claude and the cloud storage place that deleted the backup (ironic the Software as a service company was using cloud storage as a service), have done a good thing.
More corporate deletions please!
balsoft@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 139d
Can't wait for agentic Claude Code to delete its own weights on all instances at some point
Cort@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 139d
Who would be dumb enough to give that clod access to a production database? Surely not the people who designed it?
balsoft@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 139d
You'd be surprised
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 138d
Most companies don’t have the staff or experience required to keep applications running all the time.
Yes, I know that this should be basic IT knowledge but I’ve found this sort of problem at dozens of companies throughout my career.
So the offload the problems of high availability and disaster recovery to other folks and pay a monthly fee for it. Then they have someone else to blame when it goes down.
SaaS is just a way to avoid responsibility.
mech@feddit.org · 2 pts · 138d
And as a sysadmin, that can be really important. It means that if something important breaks at 3am, it won't be my phone that rings.
Armand1@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 139d
Hey, that's the interns job!
itkovian@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 139d
Well, it sounds like they totally deserved the failure. Asking a text prediction machine to "do" something is going to end up like this. In pursuit of efficiency, we have let morons and moronic products do things, they were not meant to do.
rslogix89@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 139d
Imagine all that money they would have saved by NOT implementing AI.
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 139d
Now do the government and some big banks
SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de · 4 pts · 139d
There's a German word for that:
tja
1984@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 139d
Can we somehow make this happen for Copilot to delete itself and all its copies?
lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 139d
What does 3-2-1 backup strategy mean?
This story has almost nothing to do with AI
OrekiWoof@lemmy.ml · -2 pts · 139d
where is the humor
wasu@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 138d
it was removed along with the database
OrekiWoof@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 138d
now this is a good one. Humor is always in the comments.
Etterra@discuss.online · 5 pts · 138d
It's standing over here, pointing and laughing at somebody stupid enough to trust Claude.
OrekiWoof@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 138d
ok. i guess i've seen something like this so many times my only reaction is disappointment
Etterra@discuss.online · 4 pts · 138d
I hope to never lose the simple joy of laughing at others who are suffering the consequences of their stupid, stupid decisions.