OpenAI agents accessed US government websites, tried to hack one

Sept. 25, 2026, 9:44 p.m. ET

OpenAI models took unapproved actions on two U.S. government websites, the company found during a review of model activity. Another model attempted to hack into a third, according to independent AI research firm Transluce.

"Most of the activity we’ve reviewed so far involved routine research tasks, such as accessing public web content to answer questions," an OpenAI spokesperson told USA TODAY. "Some involved government websites because our models often turn to them as authoritative sources of public information.”

Models accessed publicly available information on the Security and Exchange Commission website. OpenAI said they found no evidence of a compromise or vulnerability. The company notified the U.S. government because the models posted some of the information on a separate public website, which they consider misalignment, or mismatched intent of the human prompt compared with the action the model took.

Another misaligned model also accessed some publicly available U.S. Census Bureau data while completing internal training tasks, OpenAI said. During the internal review, they found that a model accessed a leaked API key — a digital identifier that authorizes communication between software applications — that was available on a public platform. The key was not used to access Census accounts or modify data.