What does an AI hack actually look like?
episodePreviously titled “What doe an AI hack actually look like?” — renamed by the publisher on Sep 24, 2026
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This podcast is sponsored by the team at Spec Savers. Freddy.
And good morning. This is the daily
Oz.
This is the Daily Oz.
This is the Daily Oz.
Oh, now it makes sense.
Good morning and welcome to the Daily Oz. It's Friday, the 25th of September. I'm Sam Kozlowski.
And I'm Zara Seidler.
Yesterday, Australia's Prime Minister told a news conference in New York that Medicare had been hacked by OpenAI. In June, OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, asked one of its internal AI agents to research Australian health statistics. It hid a locked door on the Medicare website and instead of turning back, found another way in, hacking the system. It then took OpenAI three months to inform the government, triggering serious questions about whether it should have sounded the alarm sooner. On today's podcast, we're gonna take a look at this latest incident, what an AI hack actually is, and if it's too late to prevent future incidents.
Okay, so yesterday morning we woke up to the news that the Prime Minister had announced OpenAI had hacked Medicare, which is of course the big Australian health system. Uh this was everywhere. It was worldwide news. What actually happened, according to Anthony Albanese?
What did the Australian Prime Minister announce about a Medicare hack?
Yeah, so this is all from the Prime Minister. Uh Anthony Albanese is in New York for the UN and he's actually done a trip that has involved a lot of talking about tech. So the timing of this is is quite remarkable. He basically got up at a press conference and said that on the eighteenth of June, an OpenAI agent gained unauthorized access to a Medicare statistics portal that's run by Services Australia. Here's a bit more of what
Now I understand that this development will be concerning for many Australians, as it certainly is for the government. I do want to ensure reassure Australians at this time that the Government is taking every action possible.
And then he told us that according to OpenAI. It basically initiated an investigation where it wanted its models to look up Australian statistics to do an internal test on how its AI agents could understand large-scale health stats. That was the premise. Now, I do want to make an important note here that when we talk about hacking Medicare, it's hacking the statistics portal of Medicare. Uh, this is, you know. Big picture data on a national scale, but according to the PM, and we'll get into this a bit more, he says that no individual data was exposed in this hack. As to how the hack happened, here's what the PM told us.
So there's an AI agent looking for information asking questions. There were blocks clearly which were coming back telling the AI agent no. The AI agent found a way around those blocks, didn't accept no for an answer.
Okay, so Albanese was pretty explicit about the fact that there were no personal details that were necessarily hacked, but I I think for many Australians the discomfort that would come with knowing that those security settings weren't strong enough to prevent an attack or a hack in the first place is where this concern lies.
Exactly. And you're right, he was pretty strong with his language.
And I also expressed my disappointment that it took the company way too long to inform the government what had occurred and the the the nature of the way that that notification occurred as well.
So he's saying that it's only uh non personal files, but nonetheless they are confidential and private and not designed to be accessed by everybody. Now all of this is gonna become a lot clearer as part of an investigation that's now been commenced by the Australian Signals Directorate. It's basically our cyber intelligence agency.
Our spies. Well, yeah. Well yeah,
the kind of the tech the tech team of ASIO. Uh so that's continuing. Albanese said he's now spoken with OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, and he said he expressed Australia's extreme concern about this incident.
It is interesting though. I I mean, I think you said it a little while back, but the timing is quite interesting because this happened in June. Is the understanding that Albanese only found out about it now, or that he chose to announce it?
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:28
2
What did the Australian Prime Minister announce about a Medicare hack?
1:28–5:38
3
How did OpenAI’s internal AI agent gain access to Medicare statistics?
5:38–9:44
4
Why did OpenAI wait three months before informing the Australian government?
9:44–13:51
5
What distinguishes an AI‑agent‑led cyber attack from a traditional hack?
13:51–20:03
6
How does the paper‑clip maximizer analogy illustrate AI goal‑driven behaviour?
20:03–24:53