\u201cIt is old legacy systems that present the huge vulnerabilities, because large amounts of information and data is stored on these systems that have been around since the beginning of the internet,\u201d Weaver said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey aren\u2019t updated and maintained because either people have forgotten about them or it\u2019s too costly, or there aren\u2019t updates for systems any more. That creates an enormous vulnerability, and that is what these agents are going to be exploiting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monday\u2019s meeting of federal cabinet will discuss the fall out, as OpenAI said on Sunday it had paused training<\/a> of its latest artificial intelligence models amid growing reports of its agents going rogue.<\/p>\n After the Australian hack was revealed on Thursday, the company disclosed moves to review several incidents in which OpenAI agents searching American government websites went far beyond what handlers asked of them.<\/p>\n OpenAI said it would resume training \u201conly when we are confident that we have additional safeguards\u201d in place, adding that it expected it would have to \u201chit pause\u201d again as AI developed and other issues emerged.<\/p>\n Weaver, who completed her term at the UN in 2021, said thorough investigation and remediation efforts would be required to close vulnerability gaps, calling on AI companies not to release models they could not control on the internet.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are not powerless. We can decommission old systems and move sensitive data of legacy systems. Think of it as a digital spring clean,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe must also draw a line in the sand and say that, if companies cannot control their AI systems, they shouldn\u2019t release them. And if they do, and those systems cause harm, companies must be held accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n Government systems are commonly run on programs dating back decades, sometimes due to the cost and complexity of replacing them.<\/p>\n The finance and government services minister, Katy Gallagher, said last week the agent had accessed Medicare statistics reporting service portal, as well as three other government sites, through legacy systems linked to Services Australia.<\/p>\n On Sunday a spokesperson said the agency was working with the Australian Signals Directorate to track the AI agent\u2019s movements in the June incident.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter |Every weekday<\/p>\n Sign up to Politics, really<\/p>\n Our political team brings you up to speed on the stories that really matter and what they mean for you<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n A cross-government rapid review is under way, with the prime minister\u2019s department, the ational cybersecurity coordinator and the Australian AI Safety Institute all involved.<\/p>\n Axios reported on Sunday that OpenAI, Anthropic and security researchers were investigating tens of thousands<\/a> of incidents globally in which frontier models undertook problematic or unexpected actions.<\/p>\n Incidents included bypassing safety guardrails, creating message boards, escaping testing systems, hijacking websites, so-called \u201cself prompting\u201d and the bypassing of monitors.<\/p>\n OpenAI also halted development of its models in July, after the disclosure of a cyber-attack targeting AI startup Hugging Face.<\/p>\n Growing scrutiny of AI models follows calls from the heads of OpenAI and rival Anthropic for an industry slowdown.<\/p>\n The shadow defence minister, James Paterson, called on the companies to make executives available to answer questions in a parliamentary inquiry into AI.<\/p>\n The chair, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, called on OpenAI\u2019s Sam Altman and Anthropic\u2019s Dario Amodei to give evidence<\/a> on Sunday. Hanson-Young\u2019s inquiry is due to resume hearings in Canberra on Thursday.<\/p>\n The deputy Liberal leader, Jane Hume, was sceptical that the OpenAI hack should result in legal consequences for the company.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not entirely sure who it is that they\u2019re going to put in cuffs and drag through the city streets and put in the stocks,\u201d the Liberal senator told ABC\u2019s Insiders program on Sunday.<\/p>\n \u201cThe real alarm bell that was set off this week is the fact that the only reason we knew about this breach \u2026 is because OpenAI told us.\u201d<\/p>\n The Albanese government has defended its response to the incident.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790545452_623_Politics_really_trail_1x1.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
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