OpenAI apologises for Medicare breach, shelves next gen ChatGPT - ABC News

OpenAI apologises for Medicare breach, shelves next gen ChatGPT By Maddie Nixon with wires Topic: Cyber Security Posted Tue 29 Sep 2026 at 1:34pm Tue 29 Sep 2026 at 1:34pm Tue 29 Sep 2026 at 1:34pm , updated Tue 29 Sep 2026 at 2:09pm Tue 29 Sep 2026 at 2:09pm Tue 29 Sep 2026 at 2:09pm ChatGPT creator OpenAI published a blog post titled How we will do better for Australia. ( Reuters: Carlos Barria, file ) In short: OpenAI says it wants to "rebuild trust with the Australian people" after an agent hacked into Medicare's Statistics Reporting Service. The company said the breach was undertaken by an internal-only model that did not have the safeguards used in publicly available products. OpenAI has also scrapped the release of GPT-6.1 Astra over safety concerns. OpenAI has apologised for its AI agent breaching Medicare's Statistics Reporting Service, and has shelved its upcoming release of its next-generation ChatGPT model. Last week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said an OpenAI agent gained unauthorised access to the Medicare statistics portal administered by Services Australia. In a blog post on OpenAI's website published on Tuesday morning, the company set out what they "will do to rebuild trust with the Australian people". "In Australia, we are committing resources and expertise to support affected agencies," the post said. The company also said they should have handled their response to the breach better. "We are sorry and working to do better in the future," the post said. "This is a new kind of cyber incident which represents an emerging global challenge." More details of the breach emerge The ChatGPT maker said the breach happened during training on an "internal-only OpenAI model that was not intended for public release and without the full set of safeguards used in our publicly available products". During this training, the agent discovered a way to gain non-public access to Services Australia Medicare's Statistics Reporting Service where it ran commands, retrieved internal files, credentials and statistics, as well as wrote files, the company said. The company also confirmed an OpenAI model accessed the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research's public Crime Mapping Tool to research public crime statistics. Agents also discovered an exposed access key to query the Victorian Agency for Health Information's reporting system. "The extent to which this information should have been accessible is unclear, and depends on VAHI's access policies," the post said. Lastly, the post outlined how agents retrieved statistics from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, where it downloaded material that "appears to have been publicly available". "Separate attempts to bypass access controls were unsuccessful." PM says OpenAI cooperating with government Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said "OpenAI have been very constructive and open in engaging" with the government taskforce investigating the hack. "This is a challenge that the world is dealing with." Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spoke to OpenAI's CEO last week. ( AAP Image: Matt Turner ) The prime minster said artificial intelligence can improve economic growth and productivity, but comes with risks. "We've seen those risks exposed," Mr Albanese said. "So we need to work this through, we see this as an opportunity, but we want to seize the benefit whilst mitigating the risks." OpenAI said they would support Australian governments through credits from their $US1 billion ($1.42 billion) Daybreak for Frontline Defenders program — an initiative they describe as support for essential service providers to improve their frontline cyber defences. The company also said it would establish a taskforce "with independent Australian expertise to develop practical policy recommendations". OpenAI's chief strategy officer, Jason Kwon, will fly to Sydney to appear at the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence on October 6. Next-gen ChatGPT model scrapped OpenAI has scrapped the release of GPT-6.1 Astra, a next-generation AI model planned for an October debut, after internal testing found the system did not meet the company's safety and alignment standards. GPT-6.1 Astra was expected to be integrated into ChatGPT and Codex and was designed to handle more complex tasks without human assistance. OpenAI's head of safety systems, Saachi Jain, said GPT-6.1 Astra improved model laziness but "it didn't quite meet the bar in terms of staying within scope and authorisation, and how it communicates back to the user about the type of work it's done". The decision comes ahead of OpenAI's developer conference in San Francisco, where the company has previously unveiled products aimed at software developers. ABC/Reuters