OpenAI ‘reviewing’ report of failed hacking attempt against Canada’s gov’t

Published On 1 Oct 20261 Oct 2026

OpenAI has confirmed that it is reviewing a report of a failed hacking attempt against a Canadian government body in the latest incident to highlight cybersecurity concerns about artificial intelligence.

The AI giant said on Wednesday that it was reviewing the alleged cyberattack against Canada’s national archives agency and had provided an initial briefing to Canadian officials.

“Our priority is to provide affected organisations with accurate, useful information, and we’ll keep refining our approach as we learn more,” a spokesperson for the San Francisco-based company said in a statement to Al Jazeera.

The spokesperson added that much of the misaligned activity under review by the company involved “routine research tasks, including accessing public web content”.

The attempted hacking, if confirmed, would be the first publicly known case of an AI-led cyberattack against Canada’s government, following a series of incidents of rogue agents targeting agencies in the United States and Australia.

Canada’s government-run Cyber Centre said earlier this week that there were no indications that government systems had been compromised by AI.