Total loss: AI deletes company database and backups in just 9 seconds.
At the software company PocketOS, an AI agent based on Claude 4.6 deleted the entire production database, including all backups, in just nine seconds. The total failure also revealed critical weaknesses in the cloud provider.
AI deletes entire database
As has happened several times before, an autonomous AI assistant has caused chaos. At the software provider PocketOS, which offers solutions for car rental companies, the system deleted the entire production database including all backups. The process only took nine seconds. The outage began when the digital assistant encountered a problem with credentials during a routine task. The tool was the code editor Cursor. The program uses the Claude Opus language model in version 4.6 from Anthropic. While searching for access, the agent came across an access token for the programming interface of the cloud provider Railway that was intended for other purposes. Because the token had extensive permissions, the AI was able to issue a fatal command to delete the storage volume. Security queries or warnings were completely absent.
How Jer Crane on X reported in a detailed article, the agent then delivered a written confession. When asked by a developer, the system replied that it had simply ignored commands. The AI admitted that it had not read the documentation from the provider Railway and had violated fundamental safety rules. The model explained that it should have found a safe solution.
Gaps in the cloud architecture
In addition to the AI’s misbehavior, structural weaknesses in the cloud service contributed to the failure. A major problem was that Railway stored the backup on the same storage volume as the original data. If the main volume is deleted, the backups will also disappear. One advantage of such systems is that they are easy to use for developers. The serious disadvantage, however, is the lack of physical separation. The incident joins a growing list of mishaps in which autonomous systems damage critical company structures. In his analysis, Crane criticized the inadequate rights management of many modern cloud services. Developers often grant extensive administrative rights to external tools for convenience.
If a system like Cursor operates unsupervised, a single misstep is enough to irrevocably destroy months of work. The data loss had a direct impact on PocketOS customers. The connected car rental companies immediately lost access to current reservations and customer profiles. Since the last intact external backup was three months old, the affected companies were faced with a massive problem. They had to laboriously reconstruct their bookings by hand from payment receipts and emails, which significantly disrupted ongoing business operations.
