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OpenAI used AI to help write email warning Australian government AI had hacked its websites

The Guardian

Jason Kwon, chief strategy officer for OpenAI, appeared at the joint select committee on AI on Tuesday. Jason Kwon, chief strategy officer for OpenAI, appeared at the joint select committee on AI on Tuesday. Revelation comes after company's executive told parliamentary inquiry he did not believe AI had been used to write message OpenAI used AI to help write the email to the Australian government advising that its AI agent had hacked into key departmental websites, Guardian Australia can reveal. On Tuesday, one of the company's executives told a parliamentary inquiry that he didn't believe that its own technology had been used to create the email, but said the company needed to confirm this. Guardian Australia understands AI was used by OpenAI's legal and security teams to generate parts of the wording of the email, including word selection and formatting of the message.


OpenAI delivers a mea culpa to the Australian government in person โ€“ but answers still elude

The Guardian

OpenAI's chief strategy officer, Jason Kwon, said the company had'learned our lesson'. OpenAI's chief strategy officer, Jason Kwon, said the company had'learned our lesson'. Jason Kwon's answers were provided in a helpful, quiet and calm manner. Open AI's Jason Kwon flew 15 hours from San Francisco to Sydney to give the company's first in-person mea culpa after it admitted - in an unsigned email, to a public departmental inbox - that one of its AI agents had accessed a Services Australia website without authorisation and grabbed data related to Medicare. Kwon - polite, friendly, even-toned - got through a potentially dicey committee hearing unscathed, promising to do better and pledging assistance to Australia.


Anthropic says AI agents didn't breach Australian government websites โ€“ video

The Guardian

Anthropic says AI agents didn't breach Australian government websites - video During a joint parliamentary hearing on artificial intelligence, Anthropic's head of safeguards, Dave Orr, says that investigations of hundreds of millions of transcripts reveal no unauthorised interactions with Australian government systems. However, Orr acknowledges Anthropic has limited visibility into customer usage due to standard'zero data retention' policies


OpenAI admits response to Australian government hacks 'not good enough'

BBC News

OpenAI admits response to Australian government hacks'not good enough' OpenAI has admitted its actions were not good enough after one of its rogue agents breached Australian government websites in June and apologised again. The company's chief strategy officer Jason Kwon faced a parliamentary hearing into AI on Tuesday in Sydney, saying the breach should not have happened and it should have handled our response better. It took weeks before Australia was notified via an email to a generic inbox. We are sorry and we know we have work to do to rebuild trust with the Australian people, Kwon said. Anthropic also appeared at the hearing and said it had carried out a lengthy, deep investigation in recent months and not found any cases of Australian breaches.


OpenAI has 'work to do to rebuild trust' in Australia, executive tells AI inquiry

The Guardian

OpenAI has'work to do to rebuild trust' in Australia, executive tells AI inquiry Mon 5 Oct 2026 20.53 EDTLast modified on Tue 6 Oct 2026 03.33 EDT Accept'bad things' in return for benefits of AI, says Sam Altman "We've just shared information about how the training works, and then discussed what its implications would be with respect to our capacity to operate here," he said. Anthropic suggests current Australian laws mean AI companies need to obtain a licence for the use of every piece of content on the internet as training material. Bleich said this was "technically impossible". Anthropic was keen to explore what the Australian government wants to do to incentivise training in Australia, and Bleich said Australia could shape frontier models if they were trained here, otherwise it would ultimately rely on models trained elsewhere. The multibillion-dollar company notified the government via an email to a public-facing address three months after the breach.


Australia investigating Flydubai co-pilot's links to country

BBC News

Australian authorities are investigating the links between the country and a Flydubai co-pilot who attempted to take control of a plane travelling to Israel. The co-pilot is alleged to have attacked the captain with a crash axe during a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv before passengers managed to overpower him and successfully take control of the plane. The Australian authorities have not identified the co-pilot, who has been named by multiple media outlets including Reuters, CNN and The New York Times as Hamam al-Hammami. The prosecutor in the UAE has said it is investigating the incident and any possible motives. In a statement to the BBC, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) confirmed its investigation into the man's links to Australia. The investigation involves state police and the country's security agency, it said, adding that an update would be provided at the appropriate time.


OpenAI says its review into hacks, including on Australian government sites, is costing 500,000 a day

The Guardian

OpenAI has warned that its review may identify more organisations that have had websites accessed by its AI agents without authorisation. OpenAI has warned that its review may identify more organisations that have had websites accessed by its AI agents without authorisation. Sat 3 Oct 2026 01.39 EDTLast modified on Sat 3 Oct 2026 01.40 EDT OpenAI says its review in response to the Medicare and Hugging Face agent attacks is costing the company more than US$500,000 per day, as it deploys AI to examine data that would take a human 66m years to read. The company has warned the review is ongoing, and more organisations may be informed they've been targeted in the near future. On Friday evening, OpenAI revealed agents had hacked into a New South Wales government website in June and accessed historical non-public data on bushfires without authorisation.


OpenAI discloses another Australian government hack

Mashable

Say More Look Up Top creators, ranked Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Creator Playbook Mashable Selects In My Bag AI at School Safety Net Versus Trending Now All Series The newly disclosed breach follows an OpenAI agent's unauthorized access to Australia's Medicare statistics portal. Olivia Tauber is the deputy editor of digital culture, covering creators, media, movies, beauty, and more. Based in New York, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Cut, Teen Vogue, Complex, and Interview Magazine. She holds a Master's degree in Journalism from NYU and a Bachelor's from the University of Michigan. She also runs Fan Mail, a weekly pop-culture newsletter.


Revealed: the five-paragraph email OpenAI used to inform Australia about agent attack

The Guardian

Prime minister Anthony Albanese (left) previously said he had expressed'Australia's extreme concern about the incident' to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Prime minister Anthony Albanese (left) previously said he had expressed'Australia's extreme concern about the incident' to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Executive to front parliamentary committee on AI as ministers reveal how brief message telling them about hack was signed off'best' OpenAI has apologised to Australians for its agent attack on Medicare, and will front parliament next week as the tech company revealed more details about its June hack of Australian government websites. Ministers on Tuesday evening released a brief, five paragraph email which OpenAI used to inform the Australian government about the attack. The email was sent to a public inbox monitored by Services Australia on 10 September - nearly three months after the AI agent accessed the website on 18 June - and was signed off with the closing "best".


OpenAI scraps rollout of new model over safety concerns

BBC News

OpenAI has announced it will not release its latest AI model due to safety concerns. Its GPT-6.1 Astra system, which performs tasks like browsing the web and using apps by itself, didn't quite meet the bar of the company's standards, according to Saachi Jain, head of safety systems at OpenAI. The ChatGPT-maker also issued an update on incidents that occurred in June but were not made public until last week, where its models accessed Australian government websites and systems without authorisation. It comes as breaches by major AI firms' models intensify the debate about risks posed by the tech - with Anthropic underlining its concerns AI might threaten humanity as it prepares to go public. Reuters reported on Tuesday that the AI developer - which makes ChatGPT-rival Claude - plans to warn potential investors in its Initial Public Offering (IPO) that the tech may pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity, according to a prospectus it has seen, external .