OpenAI “rogue” agent activities found on Wikimedia projects

Recently, multiple organisations have disclosed how clusters of so-called “rogue” AI agents attempted to break into websites and online services, sometimes successfully. Agents from OpenAI’s environment, in particular, are known to have used other public wikis (collaboratively edited websites not owned by us) to communicate and coordinate with each other.

These types of successful intrusions can expose sensitive data or disrupt website services that users rely on, while clusters of agents can attempt attacks at a scale that is difficult for defenders to manage. They affect people behind the websites who may not understand the nature of the attack, or have the tools to effectively fight back. For a site like Wikipedia, agents might find and use security vulnerabilities or make misleading edits at scale. Wikipedia’s volunteer editors and the Wikimedia Foundation’s security teams have to detect and undo that activity.

The Wikimedia Foundation conducted its own investigation to see whether Wikimedia websites had been similarly affected by AI agents, focusing on those operated by OpenAI. We can confirm that we have discovered some activity by these “rogue” OpenAI agents on Wikimedia platforms. The unauthorized bot activities included edits to our wikis, some unsuccessful attempts to exploit a public note-taking tool we host, and heavy traffic, which are described more below.