Online Reporter
An OpenAI artificial intelligence agent “infiltrated” an Australian government health portal in what is believed to be the world’s first publicly reported AI-led hack of a state website.
The IT giant kept the breach quiet for nearly three months after its agent accessed restricted files, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has claimed. An AI agent is a software system that can independently carry out tasks on a user’s behalf, making decisions and taking actions with limited human supervision.
The OpenAI agent hacked the public-facing Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal on June 18 while researching Australian spending on medicines, Albanese said. The portal, widely used by researchers and academics, hosts aggregate data on health spending and government drug subsidies.
The prime minister disclosed the breach in New York on Wednesday after a telephone conversation with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Both are attending the UN General Assembly, where Albanese said he had a “very frank discussion” with the tech executive over the company taking “too long” to report the breach.
The agent repeatedly tried to obtain information from the portal and, after being blocked, found ways around the restrictions. It ultimately accessed restricted files, but officials said there is no evidence that personal Medicare records were compromised.
“The AI agent found a way around those blocks. Didn’t accept no for an answer, if you like,” the Australian prime minister told reporters.
OpenAI, however, did not tell the Australian government about the breach for nearly three months. The company claimed it became aware of the incident only in August during an ongoing review of “misaligned model activity” and eventually notified Australian officials on September 10. The portal has since been shut down and its data moved to more secure systems. Albanese said he had expressed “Australia’s extreme concern about this incident” and warned there would “obviously be legal consequences.” Altman acknowledged there were “issues with protocols” at OpenAI, according to the prime minister.
A “forensic investigation” led by the Australian Signals Directorate will examine whether OpenAI could face criminal charges, whether other government systems were affected, and why Australian security agencies failed to detect the intrusion. Albanese suggested the agent may have been examining Medicare spending for “commercial reasons,” including expenditure on particular medicines. — Al Jazeera.
