OpenAI agents hacked an Australian government website in search for data

Australia’s leader said it was ‘unacceptable’ OpenAI took months to report the incident.

OpenAI’s artificial intelligence agents hacked an Australian government website and attempted to breach numerous other government and university websites. The attack appears to be the first confirmed instance of a rogue AI agent breaching a government website, adding fuel to rapidly intensifying concerns about the safety of advanced AI systems and the responsibility of the companies building them.

Speaking on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said an agent from the American AI lab “infiltrated” Australia’s Medicare statistics portal and “accessed both public and non-public files.” Medicare is Australia’s universal health insurance program.

Albanese said personal information does not appear to have been accessed in the breach and that there is no evidence of a broader compromise to the network, but noted “investigations are ongoing.”

“This situation is obviously unacceptable,” Albanese said, adding that he had spoken with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman “to express Australia’s extreme concern.” Despite the breach happening in June, Albanese said the tech giant only notified the government about the incident earlier this month and did so via an email to a generic “public mailbox.”

Unlike previous agent incidents, which largely involved systems being tested for their cybersecurity skills, these latest hacks were the result of a more pedestrian task — data collection — going wrong. In a statement to The Verge , OpenAI spokesperson Oscar Haines said the models were attempting to “look up answers” during an internal evaluation. “In the course of that, our models took actions we did not intend.”

The timeline of the incident and its disclosure is likely to prove particularly inflammatory in the discussions of corporate behavior and transparency that follow. Albanese stressed the delay in disclosure is particularly unacceptable. OpenAI told the BBC in an unattributed statement that it did not become aware until August, when reviewing misaligned model activity.

OpenAI spokesperson Oscar Haines told The Verge the company’s “review found no evidence of patient records being accessed,” and that “the information accessed included aggregate health statistics and internal file names.” Haines said OpenAI has notified the relevant organizations and is providing technical information to support their investigations and address potential security vulnerabilities. “Our overall review is ongoing, and we remain committed to transparency about these issues and to sharing what we learn as that work continues,” Haines said.