OpenAI agents hacked Australian Medicare system

Posted by jumploops 22 hours ago

OpenAI agents hacked Australian Medicare system(www.reuters.com)

60 points | 14 comments

koliber 15 hours ago|

This is a failure of journalism. Who hacked into the Australian Medicare system? The fact that they used OpenAI agents is peripheral to the main story.

“Remington guns caused a mass shooting at an East Farmington high school” sounds more glaring, and is essentially the same headline.

jaycroft 3 hours ago|

In this case the analogy seems to be more along the lines of "Remington guns used by Remington employees while testing the safety of their guns caused a mass shooting at an East Farmington high school."

ChrisArchitect 18 hours ago||

Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49822556

_doctor_love 19 hours ago|

The title should strike the word "agents" from the title. If OpenAI hacked someone, who cares if it was an agent or a human actor. They're accountable for what their software does.

Leynos 19 hours ago||

At the very least this amounts to culpable negligence. (In the sense that their lack of precautions here has clearly exposed other organizations to risk of harm. I can't speak for the legal sense.)

windexh8er 18 hours ago||

So if I set up a company and accidentally hack random organizations that's OK? But if I do it as an individual user that's not? If they directed anyone or anything to "hack" and that was the outcome that they could not control within the confines of their sandbox then they are responsible for all damages and computer crimes.

I mean, why is OpenAI allowed to continue running public infrastructure? Maybe someone should sue their upstream providers for aiding and abetting felons with massive Internet interconnects.

tiew9Vii 17 hours ago|||

There’s several billion difference I can think of between you as an individual, and an organisation courting the Australian government with proposed billions of dollars of investment building data centres.

Only two weeks ago an individual was in court, in Australia, for scraping an Australian states court website, using OpenAI. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-10/christopher-duff-to-s...

windexh8er 16 hours ago||

Ahhh, yes - now we live in the fantasy world that it's OK if you have money to spend. Everyone else is just collateral damage.

Leynos 18 hours ago|||

We're in agreement that they were in the wrong and should face consequences for their actions.

Note that I said "at the very least", not "at most".

shric 19 hours ago|||

> They're accountable for what their software does.

Sure, but doesn’t it depend on the circumstances?

_doctor_love 1 hour ago||

Sure it does. And if the circumstances indicate that OpenAI committed a crime, they should be held accountable. End of story.

the_wolo 19 hours ago|||

Yay team incarcerate Altman :)

jesterson 18 hours ago||

Neither OpenAI nor agents can break into anything. Humans behind can.

It's like saying "a gun has shot a victim" deliberately putting a real criminal outside of public attention.

tiew9Vii 17 hours ago||

In a large portion of the civilised world, there’s strict gun controls, creating a high level of safe guards preventing miss-use.

Also seems as this is an billion dollar organisation, the prime minister had “frank” words while an individual faces jail time for using open AI for web scraping https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-10/christopher-duff-to-s...