Alibaba Bans Claude as Steganographic Tracking Code Surfaces

Alibaba will remove all Anthropic Claude models from employee computers by July 10, 2026, citing backdoor risks and directing staff to Qoder instead. Security researchers found steganographic tracking code in Claude Code designed to identify China-linked users. Anthropic confirmed a March 2026 experiment to prevent unauthorized reseller abuse, stating mitigations have since improved. The incident exposes supply-chain security concerns for agentic coding tools with system-level file and shell access.