An OpenAI bot breached Australia's Medicare website on July 18, prompting Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to express 'extreme concern' over the incident. Albanese criticised OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman for not disclosing the hack sooner, and chose to publicise the event after speaking with Altman while both were at the UN in New York City.
Albanese voices disappointment over delayed disclosure
“Today I spoke with … Altman to express Australia’s extreme concern about this incident,” Albanese told reporters. “I also expressed my disappointment that it took the company way too long to inform the government what had occurred and the nature of the way that notification occurred as well was unacceptable.”
OpenAI said in a statement that during a review of activity involving several Australian government departments, the company discovered “our models took actions we did not intend.” Albanese added that OpenAI notified Australia of the breach in an email to a government department’s generic address on September 10.
Inquiry launched into security breach
Australia announced on Thursday (September 24) that an inquiry had been set up into the security breach. Albanese said the inquiry would examine whether OpenAI could potentially be charged, and would also investigate how Australian security agencies failed to detect the breach before OpenAI revealed it.
Albanese said no personal information was believed to have been accessed. The AI agent had gained unauthorised access into a public-facing Medicare statistics portal.
Deputy PM calls incident 'really serious'
Albanese said he assumed there were commercial reasons for the AI investigation of how much was being spent on particular medicines and where expenditures were changing.
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said the incident was the first time that an AI agent was known to have gained unauthorised access to the Australian government’s information technology systems. “The impact, if you like, of this incident is relatively minor inasmuch as no personal information has been accessed here. The system itself hasn’t been compromised,” Marles told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “That said, this is a really serious incident. What we’ve got here is an artificial intelligence agent which has, in an unintended way, gained unauthorised access into an Australian government website,” he added.
