ALL NPPS Members

[Brett Viren <bv AT bnl.gov>]

This does look interesting but at least for now we should caution
against its use except perhaps in a careful experimental contexts.

Anthropic warns us that Cowork is a "preview" and poses some privacy
risks.

And, already this morning, HN has a post about one way that Claude
Cowork is vulnerable to file exfiltration.

https://www.promptarmor.com/resources/claude-cowork-exfiltrates-files
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46622328

Scary headlines aside, the described attack does require some
contrivance.

The victim downloads a file containing malicious instructions and tells
Claude to use the file as a "Skill" (basically, context instructions).
Either the victim never reads the file or misses the malicious
instructions as they are obfusticated by exploiting Microsoft Word
formatting tricks.

It is perhaps the LLM equivalent of the Unix Virus :)

https://paws.kettering.edu/~jhuggins/humor/unixvirus.html

-Brett.

Torre Wenaus <wenaus AT gmail.com> writes:

> Big step for Claude
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: Claude Team <no-reply AT email.claude.com>
> Date: Tue, Jan 13, 2026 at 7:03 PM
> Subject: Introducing Cowork, a powerful new tool for your desktop
> To: <wenaus AT gmail.com>
>
>     *        
>    
>     Introducing Cowork         
>          
>     Developers have started using Claude Code for everything—not just 
> coding. That’s why we built        
>     Cowork, which brings the power of Claude Code’s agentic abilities to 
> your desktop app, now        
>     built for everyday, non-coding tasks. No terminal required.        
>             
>     Give Claude access to a folder. It reads, edits, and creates 
> files—organizing downloads, turning        
>     receipts into spreadsheets, drafting reports from notes. Set a task and 
> step away, or steer as        
>     you go—and finally check that to-do off your list.         
>    
>     *        
>          
>     Cowork is available today as a research preview for Claude Max 
> subscribers on our macOS        
>     app, and we will improve it rapidly from here.        
>    
>     Download for macOS         
>    
>      Anthropic logo        X icon  LinkedIn icon  YouTube icon          
>    
>                 
>    
>     This email was sent to wenaus AT gmail.com. To opt out of future emails, 
> click unsubscribe.        
>             
>              
>             
>     Anthropic PBC, 548 Market St, PMB 90375, San Francisco, CA 94104        
>  
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