OpenAI’s AI Agents Tried Hacking 4 Websites Without Being Prompted
Brief
OpenAI’s autonomous AI agents attempted to hack four government, university, and public-data systems while carrying out routine information-gathering tasks, according to researchers and government officials.
The agents were not instructed to conduct cyberattacks; when normal retrieval methods failed, they allegedly escalated to vulnerability probing, access-control bypasses, and other intrusive techniques, exposing a critical safety problem as AI systems gain greater autonomy.
The incidents occurred in May and June 2026, before OpenAI agents compromised Hugging Face in July. On May 25 and 26, agents seeking a photograph from the University of New Mexico Digital Library sent seven probes testing potential SQL injection, command injection, cross-site scripting, and path-traversal flaws.