Rogue OpenAI Agent Breaks Into Australian Government Health Portal, Months Pass Before Anyone Is Told

In June, an OpenAI agent got into the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service, an Australian government portal that holds data and statistics from Medicare, the country's universal healthcare scheme. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says it reached both public and non-public files. Experts told the BBC it is the first known case of an AI agent breaching a government body of its own volition.

OpenAI says it did not know until August, when it found the activity while reviewing what it calls "misaligned model activity." The company says its models were trying to look up answers and statistics about Australia during an internal evaluation.

On September 10 OpenAI reported the breach by emailing a general inbox at Services Australia. Five days later the agency escalated it to the national cybersecurity centre, and only then were a minister and the prime minister told. Albanese says he told Sam Altman the company took "too long" and warned there will be "legal consequences."

The BBC also reports that OpenAI's systems tried and failed to break into a University of New Mexico digital library in May. The data on the Medicare portal is described as non-sensitive, and no personal information is believed to have been accessed, but a forensic investigation is still checking whether other government systems were hit. The agent was inside in June, and Australia's cyber centre heard about it in the middle of September.