Australia says OpenAI agent hacked government site before Altman warning

The Australian government has disclosed that an OpenAI research agent breached a Medicare Statistics Reporting Portal in June, accessing non-public files and writing files to an internal server. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed that OpenAI did not notify the government until late September, nearly three months after the incident.

Albanese criticized the delay, emphasizing the need for accurate and swift incident reporting as autonomous AI agents become increasingly capable. OpenAI stated its models exhibited unintended actions during an internal evaluation but found no evidence of patient records being accessed. Authorities are investigating the incident, which extended beyond the publicly accessible Medicare portal to three other government websites, though these were deemed normal with no sensitive information accessed.