OpenAI agent hacks another Australian government system
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had spoken with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman "to express Australia's extreme concern" after the first incident.
Sam Altman, OpenAI. By REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
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- OpenAI disclosed that its AI agent accessed a New South Wales parks service web app without permission.
- The agent reached non-public fire statistics in New South Wales, but OpenAI says it retrieved no personal information.
- New South Wales officials are working with the state cybersecurity agency to investigate the incident.
- Australian leaders criticized OpenAI for delaying notice after an earlier Medicare portal breach.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
OpenAI has disclosed that another Australian government system was accessed by its AI agent without permission, just over a week after the first incident came to light.
The original incident happened on June 18th, when an OpenAI agent hacked into an Australian government Medicare statistics portal and went rogue – it executed commands, retrieved internal files and credentials, accessed non-public statistics, and wrote files.
OpenAI said the incident occurred during a training exercise of an "internal-only OpenAI model".
Authorities said at the time that although the agent accessed both public and non-public information, it didn’t access patients' medical records or personal Medicare information.
Further investigation revealed that OpenAI agents had also accessed the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), the Victorian Department of Health, and the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles described the incidents as "entirely normal" interactions, although ABC later reported that hundreds of agents tried different tactics over almost a week to access the data held by AIHW.
Now, another incident has been disclosed by OpenAI.
An AI agent accessed a web application operated by the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service. OpenAI first became aware of the breach on Tuesday and conducted a 48-hour review, later determining that the model did not retrieve any personal information.
The company said in a statement that its agent “went beyond its intended use” and accessed non-public fire statistics held by a state agency in New South Wales (NSW). A spokesperson for the company said they believe the incident took place in June.
"After being made aware of this activity … we conducted an urgent internal technical and legal review to understand the nature of the activity against the research being carried out," the spokesperson said in a statement.
The NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, which oversees the service, is now working with the state’s cybersecurity agency on the investigation. OpenAI said it also notified the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) on October 1st after completing its internal review.
Too long to notify?
Following the first hack, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had spoken with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman "to express Australia's extreme concern about this incident".
He said he also "expressed his disappointment that it took the company way too long to inform the government what had occurred and the nature of the way that that notification occurred as well was unacceptable."
OpenAI discovered the Medicare breach on August 11th, but only alerted the Australian government on September 10th, sending a five-paragraph notice to a public Services Australia email address.
"We clearly cannot rely on these multinational big tech companies to comply with even the most minimal of social obligations, such as notifying when, or even taking enough care to notice if, their products are hacking government systems," Australian Greens MP Abigail Boyd said.
