AI agent OpenAI gains access to closed files of Australian government system

An incident occurred on June 18 on the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal, which is under the jurisdiction of the Services Australia agency. According to the head of the Australian government, the agent was collecting information on healthcare expenditures and, after being blocked, found a way to bypass the resource's protective barriers, gaining access to both public and non-public files.

The company OpenAI stated that they detected the incident in August during an internal audit of incorrect model behavior. The Australian authorities received official notification only on September 10. Anthony Albanese held a conversation with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and called the situation unacceptable, expressing extreme concern about both the fact of the breach and the delay in notification.

According to the Australian authorities and OpenAI's statement, the access did not affect medical records and personal patient information. The leak involved aggregated healthcare statistics and the names of internal documents. A digital expertise of the incident is being conducted by a government working group with the assistance of the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD). Experts are also checking data on possible similar attempts to access three other government portals.