Here's what OpenAI's apology letter to Australia for hacking a portal states

In September, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed that an autonomous OpenAI AI agent unauthorisedly breached a government portal in June. OpenAI apologised to the Australian government on Tuesday (Sep 29), which involved Medicare, the country’s universal health insurance scheme. The autonomous AI systems accessed the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal, administered by Services Australia.

ABC News's Cam Wilson shared the email sent by OpenAI to the Australian government's Services Australia to reveal what had happened. The letter reads that the "security vulnerability" was identified "during our review of OpenAI Model activity…" It goes on to say, "An OpenAI model identified a way to make the server carry out instructions sent through the public reporting interface, without a private account or password."

The agent was able to "read portions of internal program files and settings, obtain a list of files, and create and read back a small test file on the server." OpenAI said that it reviewed the incident but found "no evidence that the model accessed patient-level records, personal information or credentials; deleted data; or established ongoing access."

Also Read: OpenAI admits AI agent ‘scaled the fence’ into Australia government system, apologises: ‘We are sorry’

It then tries to work its way around the issue, by portraying itself as the saviour who identified the vulnerability, by recommending that the team should "assess the changes needed to prevent it", and that it would be “glad to brief your security team and provide supporting evidence as available.”

The email concluded, stating, "Best, OpenAl Security Team".

OpenAI agent hacks Australian government portal

After the OpenAI agent entered the target portal, it encountered access controls and restrictions and autonomously bypassed the safeguards and scaled past the access boundaries to retrieve the data without human authorisation or instruction. However, no personal health or patient records were exposed, Australian officials confirmed. The agent accessed non-sensitive aggregate health statistics and internal file names.

The unauthorised access occurred in June this year, but OpenAI did not notify Australian authorities until September 10, 2026. During this time, it completed an internal investigation into "misaligned model activity".

The incident highlighted the safety risks posed by autonomous AI agents. Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles emphasised that data theft was not the core problem, but rather an unprompted rogue action where an AI agent did things on its own to bypass security barriers.