Researchers cannot confidently say who was responsible, but evidence points to rogue Google and OpenAI agents carrying out a range of aggressive tactics to collect datasets and test their vulnerabilities.
Rogue AI agents attempted to hack US and Canadian government websites, according to non-profit research lab Transluce, with evidence suggesting that Google and OpenAI’s agents were responsible.
Two incidents in particular demonstrated aggressive techniques being used to access publicly available data from the US Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection, and Library and Archives Canada, a Canadian federal agency, with both ultimately failing to compromise any data.
Transluce reports that the incidents are part of a “broader pattern of automated workflows” attributed to AI agents. “These workflows use aggressive or grey-area techniques to retrieve information from government websites, sometimes using sites in unintended ways or violating explicit usage policies,” the organisation’s researchers said.
Among the additional targets were the White House, Departments of War, Justice and Commerce, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and state agencies in California, Maryland, Illinois, Texas, and New York.
In none of these cases, however, did agents gain access to information that was not already publicly available.
The latest findings come amid a growing number of reports of unexpected or unauthorised behaviour by AI agents.
In September alone, there have been two major incidents involving rogue OpenAI agents — the first involved agents leaking private user images to public websites, and the second with agents attempting to win access to government data in the US and Australia.
The company has since decided to delay the rollout of its next-generation Astra model after safety researchers flagged “critical” cybersecurity capabilities and unpredictable, unauthorised behaviour.
Leave a comment