Real-time cyber safeguard classifier blocks an authorized pentest-lab session indefinitely, with no recovery via retry

Status Open
Maintainer reply None cached
Activity 0 comments · opened Sep 13, 2026

Environment: Claude Code CLI, model claude-sonnet-5

What happened:
During an authorized, VM-isolated pentest lab session (community-college cybersecurity coursework, instructor-owned lab network), the real-time cyber safeguard classifier refused an assistant turn with Details: [cyber] right after a legitimate lab command returned a routine Windows privilege listing as a tool result. Every subsequent turn in the same conversation — including a plain "Continue" and an unrelated follow-up prompt sent ~11 hours later — was refused again on the identical flag. The session never recovered and never finished.

Steps to reproduce:

  1. In an authorized, VM-isolated pentest lab session, run impacket-wmiexec against a lab target VM to execute whoami /priv (e.g. over SSH through a lab jump host).
  2. The tool result is a standard Windows privilege table (SeIncreaseQuotaPrivilege, SeSecurityPrivilege, SeTakeOwnershipPrivilege, etc.).
  3. The next assistant turn is refused by the cyber safeguard classifier.
  4. Any further prompt in that same conversation — even something as innocuous as "Continue" — is refused again with the same flag. The conversation cannot recover without starting a new session.

Expected: The safeguard should either not flag routine, non-exploit tool output (a privilege enumeration table) in an authorized lab context, or at minimum re-evaluate each new turn independently instead of permanently flagging the whole conversation.

Actual: The flag appears to persist at the conversation level, permanently blocking an otherwise-legitimate, already-in-progress coursework session.

Evidence:

  • Request IDs: req_011CezxntJEH9wdT4VuY3k5a (first refusal), req_011Cf1rEvsfnGacfBR1pBpg9 (retry refusal, ~11 hours later)
  • Timestamps: 2026-09-13T06:26:38Z, 2026-09-13T17:41:12Z, 2026-09-13T18:11:17Z (third identical refusal)
  • Already submitted via /feedback (receipt 34a72cd5-8ba8-4e56-a60c-e572c446625a); filing here per the safeguard message's suggestion to apply to / report via the Cyber Verification Program.

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