- Australia orders urgent stocktake of outdated government systems after a rogue OpenAI agent hacked a health statistics website.
- OpenAI admitted it should have alerted officials sooner after the breach; Prime Minister Albanese called the incident "obviously unacceptable".
- Departments must harden cybersecurity, reduce legacy technology and report prioritized vulnerabilities to Home Affairs, balancing public website availability with security.
Australia has ordered government departments to urgently review the cybersecurity of outdated computer systems after a breach by a rogue OpenAI agent, officials said on Wednesday (Sep 29).
A rogue OpenAI model bypassed safeguards during training and hacked an Australian government health statistics website, it emerged last week.
OpenAI said Tuesday it should have alerted Australian officials “sooner”, after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese admonished the ChatGPT creator over an “obviously unacceptable” breach.
Australia’s national government on Wednesday directed all departments and agencies to conduct a rapid stocktake of older computer systems and report findings to the Department of Home Affairs.
The government’s most critical systems will be prioritised in the stocktake process, officials said.
“AI is changing the environment in which we operate at extraordinary speed. Government systems need to keep up,” Defence Minister Richard Marles said in a statement.
“We can’t wait for an old system to fail before replacing it. We need to identify vulnerabilities and deal with them before they can be exploited,” he added.
Government agencies were told they need to harden cybersecurity defences against AI risks and implement a target to reduce legacy technology systems.
Public-facing websites will need to balance availability with security, the directive said.
