![\"First](\"https:\/\/dailycallernewsfoundation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Anthony-Albanese-Portrait-Public-Domain.jpg\")
By Dylan Kresak<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An artificial intelligence giant waited nearly three months to report that its agents broke into a foreign government website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OpenAI\u2019s agent gained unauthorized access to Australia\u2019s Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal on June 18, but the company did not notify the Australian government until Sept. 10, acting Prime Minister Richard Marles said, according<\/a> to a Thursday press conference transcript. The incident<\/a> marks another publicly reported case of OpenAI\u2019s agents<\/a> breaking into outside systems, after they hacked<\/a> New York City-based startup Hugging Face<\/a> in July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was not sitting behind a particularly high fence. This AI agent scaled the fence, but it did scale it,\u201d Marles said, according to the transcript. \u201cAnd the point is it was unintended. It wasn\u2019t asked to. That\u2019s our concern here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Deputy Prime Minister \u2014 acting as Australia\u2019s head government while Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was attending the United Nations General Assembly \u2014 explained that while this incident had a minor impact and no individual\u2019s medical data was accessed, the situation is still serious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[I]n an unintended way, an AI agent has entered into an Australian Government website in a way which is unauthorised,\u201d Marles said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The portal \u201cdid have protections in place. Unfortunately, this agent got around that,\u201d Minister for Government Services Katy Gallagher added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OpenAI notified Services Australia of the hacking incident through a public email inbox that is checked once a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s not good enough that that\u2019s how we first became notified of it,\u201d Marles stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet referred the Daily Caller News Foundation to its announcement<\/a> of the government\u2019s rapid review and Thursday\u2019s press conference with Marles and Gallagher who are both members of the Australian Labor Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rapid review will be led by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and will decide whether Australia\u2019s laws can adequately handle cyber incidents caused by AI technologies, according to the announcement of the review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OpenAI, Hugging Face, and Services Australia each did not respond to the DCNF\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[I]t took the company way too long to inform the government what had occurred,\u201d Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a Wednesday press conference announcing the rapid review taskforce, according<\/a> to an ABC News (Australia) broadcast posted on YouTube. \u201c[T]he nature of the way that that notification occurred as well, was unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The agent was looking up public medicine spending for an OpenAI test when the Medicare portal blocked it, Marles and Gallagher said. Furthermore, the agent visited three other Australian government sites, but only pulled public data from those sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OpenAI has been \u201cvery cooperative in terms of the engagement that we are having with them now,\u201d Marles said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marles met with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in person earlier<\/a> in September, prior to the company notifying the Australian government of the incident. The incident was also not discussed in the meeting, he said at Thursday\u2019s press conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n