Anthony Albanese has revealed an artificial intelligence agent developed by OpenAI hacked Medicare in June. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing The Guardian.
Details of the incident
The prime minister made the comments at the UN summit in New York. According to him, the incident occurred in June this year and involved an OpenAI agent gaining unauthorised access into the public-facing Medicare statistics reporting service portal, which is administered by Services Australia.
According to Albanese, the AI agent accessed both public and non-public files.
Investigation
A forensic investigation, aided by the Australian Signals Directorate, is now under way to ascertain more information, including what other government systems were affected.
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.
Personal information risk
No personal information is believed to have been accessed at this stage but investigations are ongoing.
Evidence currently available is there is no broader compromise to the Services Australia network.
Nonetheless, according to Albanese, this situation is obviously unacceptable.
Conversation with OpenAI CEO
Today, he spoke with the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, to express Australia's extreme concern about this incident.
He also expressed his disappointment that it took the company way too long to inform the government what had occurred.