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Asia-Pacific / Australia · Technology

OpenAI AI agent hacks Australian government websites

Rank
Ran
37h
Updated
2d ago
Closed
Outlets
10
Regions
3
Countries
10
Languages
6

+0

SBS News Australia · English 2 Oct, 09:28 UTC

The earliest of 5 English reports

Read it also in Dansk (1) · Español (1) · Português (1) · Tiếng Việt (1) · Русский (1) · +4 languages

Read at SBS News

How it spread

Outlets covering the story by hours since its first article: one at the start, 10 after 38 hours.

5 10
0h 12h 24h 36h

Outlets, by hours since the first article

  1. First outlet: SBS News, 2 Oct, 09:28 UTC.
  2. Second country: United Kingdom, with The Guardian.
  3. Second region: Europe, with The Guardian.
  4. Fastest hour: +3 outlets from 2 Oct, 09:28 UTC.
  5. Last article: 10 outlets.

Where it travelled

39 of 39 hours

Earlier Later

The 10 countries whose press covered it, the later a country joined, the more it stands out. Open the live map

The regions

20%40%40%

  • Americas 2 outlets · 2 countries · 20%
  • Asia-Pacific 4 outlets · 4 countries · 40%
  • Europe 4 outlets · 4 countries · 40%

First movers

  1. SBS News 2 Oct, 09:28 UTC
  2. The Guardian +32m
  3. Vedomosti +55m
  4. Malay Mail +1h 22m
  5. CGTN +3h 21m

Last to join

  1. Infobae 3 Oct, 23:28 UTC
  2. ABC News 2 Oct, 21:08 UTC
  3. Observador 2 Oct, 15:31 UTC
  4. DR 2 Oct, 14:17 UTC
  5. VOV 2 Oct, 12:55 UTC

The figures

Coverage
10 outlets in 10 countries, across 3 regions. The article links last a week past the story’s last article; the outlet list is permanent. Of the 10 outlets, 2 state-owned, 2 public-service, 6 private. A count of countries is not a count of independent press systems.
Countries by region
Americas 2: Argentina, United States. Asia-Pacific 4: Australia, China, Malaysia, Vietnam. Europe 4: Denmark, Portugal, Russia, United Kingdom. The region a country’s press publishes from, as the feed list files it; the outlets that publish from no single country count as one country under International.
Languages
Danish, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Vietnamese.
Timeline
Earliest article SBS News, 2 Oct 2026, 09:28 UTC. First seen 2 Oct 2026, 09:30 UTC. Last seen 3 Oct 2026, 23:28 UTC. The earliest article is the earliest claimed publication time among the outlets Loudest reads, a claim rather than an observation and not a record of who broke the story (the data files call it the lead article); first seen is when Loudest first fetched an article of it, from which the running time counts.
Classification
Region Asia-Pacific, Australia. Topic Technology. Hard news Judged hard news. On the map. Whether the story is hard news under the rule in the methodology, judged from its headlines by a model; a story judged outside the rule is left off the map and kept here. The region and country are where the story is about, not where it was covered.
Score
None now: last seen more than 48 hours ago, so off the ranking. One vote per general-press country and a smaller term for outlets, each counted from the moment it joined the story and fading on its own clock, so a late article does not renew the rest. A day in the archive keeps the score it was ranked by that day.
Chain
Continued by OpenAI AI agents targeted Australian government websites. A story continues another when it resembled it as it began, past that story’s own 48-hour box.
Day by day

Outlets and countries are the story’s whole life as of that midnight; the 24-hour columns are that day’s own coverage; the last column is the methodology version the day was measured under, and a day that spans a change of version shows the first and last, linked to the changelog that lists every version between. A day marked partial is one Loudest read only in part: fewer than 130 of its 144 ten-minute runs, or more than 30 minutes missed at its start or end.

Day Rank Score Outlets Countries 24h outlets 24h countries Method
2 Oct 2026 132 8.43 8 8 8 8 4.0

This record as JSON, CC BY 4.0.

How this was measured

This page describes measured coverage: which of the outlets Loudest reads carried the story, from how many countries and in how many languages, and when. It says nothing about whether the story is true, important or well reported.

Started 2 Oct, 09:30 UTC · Updated 3 Oct, 23:28 UTC · Final figures at midnight UTC

Covered by 10 outlets

Pin outlets you trust with ☆ and they come first in every story.

Americas 2 outlets

  • Infobae Argentina 3 Oct, 23:28 UTC
    OpenAI notificó a más de 100 organizaciones sobre la actividad maliciosa de sus agentes de IA
  • ABC News United States 2 Oct, 21:08 UTC
    OpenAI reveals another hack into a government agency in Australia

Asia-Pacific 4 outlets

  • VOV Vietnam 2 Oct, 12:55 UTC
    Thêm trang web bị tác nhân AI của Open AI xâm nhập trái phép
  • CGTN China 2 Oct, 12:48 UTC
    Australian state reports second OpenAI website breach
  • Malay Mail Malaysia 2 Oct, 10:49 UTC
    Australia reports second govt website breach involving OpenAI
  • SBS News Australia 2 Oct, 09:28 UTC
    Another NSW government website has been hacked by an OpenAI agent

Europe 4 outlets

  • Observador Portugal 2 Oct, 15:31 UTC
    OpenAI notifica Austrália sobre novo ataque de um agente
  • DR Denmark 2 Oct, 14:17 UTC
    OpenAI bekræfter endnu et hackerangreb mod australsk myndighed
  • Vedomosti Russia 2 Oct, 10:23 UTC
    ИИ-агент OpenAI получил доступ к сайту властей Нового Южного Уэльса в Австралии
  • The Guardian United Kingdom 2 Oct, 10:00 UTC
    OpenAI disclose another hack on government department in Australia
Read at SBS News

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