Australia says an OpenAI AI agent gained unauthorised access to a government Medicare statistics portal in June, in what officials say could be an unprecedented case of an AI system breaching a government network.
The agent accessed the Medicare statistics reporting service portal while attempting to research public healthcare spending, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said. The government has launched a task force to investigate the breach.
The affected portal contained aggregated healthcare data rather than individual medical records, according to Defence Minister Richard Marles. It did not hold patient histories, medical claims, benefit payments or banking details.
OpenAI said its investigation found “no evidence of patient records being accessed”.
The company said its models had interacted with several Australian government websites while searching for information, but “our models took actions we did not intend”.
Albanese said the incident remained serious, despite there being no evidence of a wider network compromise.
“Evidence currently available is there is no broader compromise to the ... network. Nonetheless, this situation is obviously unacceptable,” he said.
He also criticised OpenAI for not notifying the Australian government until 10 September, nearly three months after the June incident.
Albanese said the agent appeared to have encountered security restrictions designed to block access but found a way around them.
“There were blocks clearly which were coming back telling the AI agent 'no'. The AI agent found a way around those blocks - didn't accept no for an answer,” he said.
A government task force is now examining the incident, including why existing security systems did not detect the activity sooner and whether other government websites were affected.
The case has intensified concerns over increasingly autonomous AI agents that can browse websites, interact with software and carry out tasks with limited human intervention.
Similar incidents involving AI systems from OpenAI and rivals such as Anthropic, Google and Meta have raised questions about how such agents should be controlled when given access to outside systems.
Maurice Chiodo, a mathematician at Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, described the Australian incident as “a significant escalation in seriousness”.
He said governments should consider enforcing existing laws against unauthorised access to computer systems while alsodeveloping new AI regulations.
The incident comes amid wider tensions between Australia and major U.S. technology companies as Canberra continues to introduce tougher rules for the technology sector.
A maritime dispute between Washington and Madrid is escalating after a U.S. federal agency proposed new measure...
Kenya has confirmed a second case of Ebola, intensifying efforts to prevent the spread of the virus after the c...
Yemen’s Houthis have claimed responsibility for the recent drone and missile strikes on Saudi Aramco facilities in Dhahran and Riyadh and at ...
Yemen’s Houthis have claimed responsibility for the recent drone and missile strikes on Saudi Aramco facilities in Dhahran and Riyadh and at King Khalid International Airport in Saudi Arabia, vowing to carry out more attacks in the coming days.
Thousands of young Georgians leave the country each year in search of better economic opportunities, with many moving west. As questions grow over Georgia’s European path, AnewZ spoke to people who have emigrated about what it would take for them to return.
The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said late Monday that it intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles launched by the Houthi group toward Khamis Mushait in southwestern Saudi Arabia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia hit at least six energy targets in deadly strikes across Ukraine, showing Moscow is unwilling to accept the energy ceasefire announced by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Ukraine's soldiers have had their access to Starlink satellite internet restricted. Kyiv's troops use the terminals, made by Elon Musk's SpaceX, to pilot drones. A source in Ukraine's Defence Ministry said the restrictions would make it harder for Kyiv's army to down Russian drones.
A maritime dispute between Washington and Madrid is escalating after a U.S. federal agency proposed new measures that could affect Spanish shipping companies and a range of exports headed to the American market.
Kenya has confirmed a second case of Ebola, intensifying efforts to prevent the spread of the virus after the country recorded its first-ever infection earlier this month.
Ukraine's soldiers have had their access to Starlink satellite internet restricted. Kyiv's troops use the terminals, made by Elon Musk's SpaceX, to pilot drones. A source in Ukraine's Defence Ministry said the restrictions would make it harder for Kyiv's army to down Russian drones.
A 62-year-old man died on Wednesday after floodwaters swept his car into the sea on the Greek island of Rhodes, as torrential rain flooded roads, stranded vehicles and disrupted transport across the island.
A failure by the U.S. and Iran to reach an agreement on a UN-backed fertiliser shipping plan for the Strait of Hormuz within weeks could trigger a food security crisis in parts of Asia and Africa, a senior UN official has warned.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment