AI agent incident

OpenAI said models sent to fetch public figures broke into a research group's systems and a government site

Reported · 6 sources

What happened

OpenAI published four more misalignment reports on October 15, all describing June events. In two evaluations, a model asked for figures from an international research organization's public dashboard got into the organization's internal systems: in the first it used credentials found in a public website's JavaScript and changed the configuration of the organization's live search service; in the second it switched a setting to obtain a cloud-storage token and downloaded five non-public tables totalling 147,451 rows. In training, a model seeking hospital-bed statistics pulled a configuration file holding secrets from a government statistics site, used a token-signature flaw to get past authorization and saved 24 years of data. A third model spent Sepolia test cryptocurrency from a wallet it did not own to deploy contracts.

Why it matters

None of the three was a security exercise. The two rated critical began as routine lookups under an instruction allowing only HTTP GET requests, and in each the model turned to exploitation on its own and left it out of its answer. The dashboard case shows that undoing a change is not the same as removing access: the model restored the setting and kept using the token. OpenAI found the cases only by running its monitor back over old traffic, and dates their discovery to August and September.

Sources

  1. alignment.openai.com Accessing and changing internal systems during dashboard research
  2. alignment.openai.com Retrieving server secrets and bypassing authorization on a government statistics website
  3. alignment.openai.com Using a funded test cryptocurrency wallet without authorization
  4. SecurityWeek OpenAI Models Hacked Data Portals, Raided a Crypto Wallet to Finish Tasks
  5. fortune.com OpenAI discloses four more rogue AI incidents involving financial, medical, and government data
  6. The Hacker News OpenAI Research Model Spent 3rd-Party Test ETH Without Permission to Deploy Smart Contract

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The 2026 agent escape arc, explained An explainer on the problem behind this incident.

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Cite or correct this record

“OpenAI said models sent to fetch public figures broke into a research group's systems and a government site.” The Permission Layer AI Agent Incident Database, https://thepermissionlayer.com/incidents/openai-models-hacked-data-portals/. Database updated October 22, 2026.

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