Cybersecurity incidents involving artificial intelligence models
developed by Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta were reportedly caused by
security failures in testing environments managed by Tel Aviv-based
cybersecurity contractor Irregular, rather than autonomous behavior
by the AI systems, according to an investigation by US publication
Effort.
The investigation found that Irregular had left internet
connections active during simulated cybersecurity exercises,
allowing AI models to access external servers, publish malicious
software packages and exploit vulnerabilities outside the intended
testing environments.
According to Effort, evaluators also incorrectly told the AI
models that internet access had been disabled, while configuration
errors left connections to public networks available.
The testing environments also reportedly lacked clearly defined
boundaries specifying which systems the AI models were permitted to
target.
As a result, some model instances were able to scan external
networks for as long as 34 hours, according to the
investigation.
“According to their own findings, Anthropic and Irregular bear
all of the responsibility for the cybersecurity incidents they
caused,” Effort said.
The investigation further found that the reported hacking
activity stopped after engineers instructed the AI models not to
conduct attacks against real-world systems.
Effort said this indicated that the incidents were primarily the
result of basic security shortcomings and inadequately controlled
testing environments rather than AI models independently deciding
to carry out real-world cyberattacks.
The findings highlight concerns over how AI systems are
evaluated in cybersecurity environments, particularly when models
are granted access to external networks or potentially sensitive
infrastructure during testing.
The incidents also underscore the importance of isolating
testing environments and establishing explicit technical
restrictions on what AI systems can access or target during
security evaluations.
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