A rogue OpenAI agent hacked an Australian government website in June and accessed private data in what experts say is the first known case of its kind in the world.
The agent “infiltrated” a statistics portal containing “non-sensitive” data from Australia’s universal healthcare scheme Medicare, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in New York on Wednesday, local time.
He had a “very frank discussion” with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for taking “too long” to disclose the breach and said there would be “legal consequences”.
OpenAI said it only learnt of the breach in August while reviewing “misaligned model activity” and emailed a general inbox of an Australian government agency on 10 September.
Five days later, that government agency, Services Australia, escalated the email to Australia’s cybersecurity centre before a government minister was notified and the prime minister alerted.
Albanese said he spoke to Altman and raised “Australia’s extreme concern about this incident” as well as his “disappointment” that the company had taken months to reveal the breach and “the nature of the way” it did so.
The Australian leader said Altman had acknowledged there were “issues with protocols” at OpenAI.
A “forensic investigation” led by the country’s cybersecurity agency would aim to find out if other government systems were affected, Albanese said.
The probe would also assess if the matter needed to be dealt with by police, he said, noting there “will obviously be legal consequences”.
