PM contacted Sam Altman over Australia’s ‘extreme concern’
Anthony Albanese disclosed the breach while speaking at the United Nations summit in New York.
“This incident occurred in June this year and involved an Open AI agent gaining unauthorised access into the public-facing Medicare statistics reporting service portal, which is administered by Services Australia,” Albanese said, according to The Guardian.
The AI agent accessed both public and non-public files, Albanese said. The Medicare statistics reporting portal is a public-facing statistics portal that contains non-sensitive Medicare information relating to data and statistics, such as spending.
Albanese said investigators believe no personal information has been accessed at this stage, though the investigation remains ongoing. “Evidence currently available is there is no broader compromise to the Services Australia network,” he said.
“Nonetheless, this situation is obviously unacceptable,” Albanese said. He added that he had spoken with OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman to convey “Australia’s extreme concern about this incident.”
Albanese also criticized the company’s notification timeline. “I also expressed my disappointment that it took the company way too long to inform the government what had occurred,” he said.
The Australian Signals Directorate is assisting a forensic investigation to identify any other government systems affected, according to The Guardian.