AI agent OpenAI hacked Australian government website

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who is in New York at the UN General Assembly, said that an AI agent developed by the American company OpenAI hacked into a government portal containing proprietary data from Australia's universal health insurance system. The incident occurred back in June, but at first the development company did not notice it, and then hesitated to notify the Australian authorities.

OpenAI says its AI agent searched for health statistics in June and accessed files from “multiple Australian government websites and services.” Among them were data from the government health insurance system, Medicare, that were not publicly available.

The company says it only became aware of the incident in August and notified government agency Services Australia on September 10 via a general email address. The Australian Cyber ​​Security Service was then notified and a few days later the information was passed on to the responsible Minister.

Anthony Albanese called the incident disturbing and OpenAI's actions unacceptable. "I spoke with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman today and expressed Australia's extreme concern about this incident," the prime minister said.

The Australian government has announced an urgent review of approaches to regulating artificial intelligence. The review will be led by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

In a statement, OpenAI said the incident was identified during a "large-scale review" of instances of "inconsistent model behavior." The company said it found no evidence of access to patient data, but notified the relevant organizations.

Richard Marles, acting prime minister, noted that the data was "just behind a fence" and the AI ​​agent had climbed over it unintentionally. Cybersecurity experts, however, emphasize that the very fact that a government system was hacked is a serious incident, since the defense was unable to detect the agent.

Australian Communications Minister Anika Wells said she would introduce a digital duty of due diligence bill in October to ensure tech giants are held accountable for their actions.