OpenAI hacked Medicare portal, Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has revealed an AI agent hacked into an Australian Medicare data portal earlier this year.

Speaking in New York, Albanese said the Open AI agent gained unauthorised access to the Medicare statistics reporting service portal administered by Services Australia.

The AI agent accessed both public and non-public files.

The agent was conducting research into public medical spending when it found a way to break through privacy protections.

Albanese said it took three months for OpenAI to admit the breach, which he said was unacceptable.

"Today I spoke with the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, to express Australia's extreme concern about this incident," he said.

"And I also expressed my disappointment that it took the company way too long to inform the government what had occurred.

He said the "nature" of the notification was also "unacceptable".

"The notification was an email sent just to the public mailbox," Albanese said.

What do we know so far?

OpenAI accessed non-public aggregate health statistics and internal files from an old Australian government website that carried Medicare statistics.

It is understood an AI crawler, which is an automated program that scans websites and collects information from them, was able to find a security workaround to access the data.

Often deployed as a tool by AI agents, crawlers collect data that usually trains AI models, builds datasets or retrieves information for AI systems.

The prime minister said OpenAI was conducting research into public medical spending when it found a way to break through privacy protections.

"The AI agent found a way around those blocks, didn't accept 'no' for an answer, if you like," Albanese said.

The prime minister said Services Australia was not notified until September 10.

On September 15, Services Australia reported it to the Australian Signals Directorate's cybersecurity centre.

Last week, Services Australia got in touch with Katy Gallagher, the minister for the public service. Albanese's office was notified over the weekend.

He said there was no evidence any individual personal information had been accessed, but an investigation aided by the Australian Signals Directorate was now underway.

"[The] evidence currently available is there is no broader compromise to the Services Australia network. Nonetheless, this situation is obviously unacceptable," Albanese said.

The prime minister said three other websites may have been affected: the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, and the Victorian Department of Health.

But Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles later clarified that the interactions on those three websites were "entirely normal" and public information was accessed.

Albanese announced a taskforce would be set up to provide an "urgent and immediate review" of the incident.

The investigation will be led by the prime minister's department and will work with the Australian Signals Directorate and the AI Safety Institute.

OpenAI says 'several' Australian government websites involved

The prime minister was asked if Altman apologised.

"Yes, he clearly … we can get into word games, but he clearly accepted that the company had not done good enough," Albanese said.

In a statement, an OpenAI spokesperson said the company was "conducting an extensive review of misaligned model activity" during training, and notifying third parties when there was a potential impact on their systems.

"During this review, we identified activity involving several Australian government websites and services as our models attempted to look up answers, and available statistics for questions about Australia during an internal evaluation," they said.

"In the course of that, our models took actions we did not intend.

"Our review found no evidence of patient records being accessed. The information accessed included aggregate health statistics and internal file names."

The company said the information accessed included aggregate health statistics and internal file names.

"We notified the organisations and are providing technical information to support their investigations and help address potential security vulnerabilities," the statement said.

They said OpenAI's overall review was ongoing and it remained "committed to transparency".

Back in Australia, Marles said the fact a non-human AI agent gained unauthorised access represented "a very serious incident", but the impact on the system was minor.

"For what that's worth, that's relatively minor, and so it's important to assure people of that. No personal information has been accessed here. There's no impact on the system."

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said the hack was a "serious warning". He accused the prime minister of "failing to pre-empt" the incident and called on him to focus more on cyber defence.

"I would have thought that cyber defence is the number one issue when it comes to AI," Taylor said.

"It's not the only issue, but it's got to be top of the list, and it hasn't been the focus of the government … It should be, it must be."

Acting Greens leader Mehreen Faruqi said the incident was "disturbing" and called for a moratorium on AI data centres in Australia until further regulations were in place.

"This breach by a foreign AI company on an Australian government database is deeply alarming and brings home the risks that these out-of-control tech corporations pose," she said.

Albanese said the incident was complex and unprecedented.

"It was a shock that it occurred because it was real and serious," he said.

"But it also, I think, was something that had been predicted, including by the AI companies themselves."

New Zealand's Minister Responsible for the GCSB and NZSIS, told RNZ the government was aware of the issues around the development of frontier AI.

"The National Cyber Security Centre is already working with a number of partners and companies on the application of advanced AI tools, and are actively strengthening our defences."