Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed an agent linked to ChatGPT developer OpenAI has hacked into a Medicare portal.
Albanese said that in June this year, "an artificial intelligence agent has infiltrated an Australian government website."
"[It involved] an OpenAI agent gaining unauthorised access into the public–facing Medicare statistics reporting service portal, which is administered by Services Australia.
"The AI agent accessed both public and non–public files."
He added a "forensic investigation, aided by the Australian Signals Directorate, is now underway to ascertain more information, including what other government systems were affected.
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According to the Prime Minister "no personal information is believed to have been accessed at this stage, but investigations are ongoing."
"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," he said.
Albanese said he spoke with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman "to express Australia's extreme concern about this incident".
"I also expressed my disappointment that it took the company way too long to inform the government what had occurred, and the nature of the way that notification occurred as well was unacceptable."
This is a developing story and this article will be updated.
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