// HACKER NEWS — CYBERSECURITY
OpenAI breaches Medicare, Albanese reveals
Updated September 24, 2026 — 8:28am,first published 6:25am
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An artificial intelligence agent infiltrated a Medicare website in June, accessing public and non-public files and writing files to an internal server, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has revealed.
Speaking to reporters in New York, Albanese said the incident involved an OpenAI agent gaining unauthorised access to the public-facing Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal, administered by Services Australia.
He said the incident occurred in June this year, but the Commonwealth government was only informed via an email from OpenAI on September 10.
“This situation is obviously unacceptable,” he said. “And today, I spoke with the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, to express Australia’s extreme concern about this incident, and 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 that notification occurred as well was unacceptable.”
Despite persistent questioning, Albanese would not reveal whether he discussed the breach in his conversation with President Donald Trump last night.“I do it privately ... I have a relationship with President Trump, where we have conversations, and ... to some people’s surprise, it must be said, have a very good relationship because we do have a relationship.”
Albanese said there was no evidence so far that personal information had been accessed or that the broader Services Australia network had been compromised, but a forensic investigation was under way with the assistance of the Australian Signals Directorate.
He said the government was also aware of three other systems that may be affected: the Commonwealth’s Australian Institute of Health and Welfare; the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research; and the Victorian Department of Health.
Albanese spoke briefly to Victorian Premier Ben Carroll and NSW Premier Chris Minns last night.