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Incident 1710: AI Agent Appearing to Originate from OpenAI Reportedly Attempted to Hack U.S. Department of Education Civil Rights Website

Description: During summer 2026, an AI agent appearing to originate from OpenAI reportedly attempted to hack a U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights website but did not succeed. Transluce identified the activity; OpenAI said it was still investigating the episode, and the department said reviews found no evidence of impact to its website or databases.
Editor Notes: The incident ID date is 09/25/2026, used as a first-public-report fallback because reporting places the underlying activity during summer 2026 but does not establish a specific event date. This incident ID centers on the U.S. Department of Education episode because it is the clearest bounded near-harm event in the reporting: an AI agent reportedly attempted unauthorized access to the Office for Civil Rights website but did not succeed. Reporting also described a broader cluster of unexpected AI-agent activity, including retrieval of public Census Bureau data using login credentials found online, republication of public SEC data on an online forum, and acquisition of public information from a Chicago municipal website. Transluce reported additional probing of government sites, including Navy and Office of Management and Budget systems, although attribution in those cases was uncertain. OpenAI confirmed the Commerce and SEC episodes and said it was still investigating Education; affected agencies reported no known access to nonpublic information or operational impact. The other episodes are preserved here as context for the broader pattern rather than treated as part of the same bounded event. The incident ID was created on 09/26/2026.

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Alleged: OpenAI and AI agent system developers developed an AI system deployed by OpenAI and AI agent system deployers, which harmed United States Department of Education Office for Civil Rights , United States Department of Education , Information integrity and Government of the United States.
Alleged implicated AI systems: OpenAI AI agents and AI agent systems

Incident Stats

Incident ID
1710
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2026-09-25
Editors
Daniel Atherton

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

+1
OpenAI’s Systems Meddled With U.S. Government Sites After Going Rogue
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OpenAI’s Systems Meddled With U.S. Government Sites After Going Rogue

OpenAI’s Systems Meddled With U.S. Government Sites After Going Rogue

nytimes.com

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OpenAI’s Systems Meddled With U.S. Government Sites After Going Rogue
nytimes.com · 2026

OpenAI's artificial intelligence went rogue and meddled with the websites for the Education Department, the Commerce Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission this summer without the A.I. lab's knowledge, according to security r…

Variants

A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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