{"id":148952,"date":"2026-08-24T00:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T00:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/148952\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T00:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T00:11:08","slug":"openai-exec-tells-people-to-expect-ai-driven-cyberattacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/148952\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI Exec Tells People to Expect AI-Driven Cyberattacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of OpenAI\u2019s<\/a> leading executives says people should prepare themselves for routine artificial intelligence-related cyberattacks.<\/p>\n

Chris Lehane<\/a>, the AI startup\u2019s chief global affairs officer, gave this warning<\/a> to The Guardian on Sunday (Aug. 23), days after his company paused development on its latest model following increasing safety concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are hitting a different chapter, a different moment within AI, in terms of what the capabilities of this technology can do,\u201d Lehane said.<\/p>\n

Lehane acknowledged people would not \u201cfeel great\u201d about the possibility of attacks, and described the threat as coming from open-source models<\/a> which are only a few months behind frontier closed models developed by companies like OpenAI.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are going to be able to access these open-source models and be able to have ongoing, persistent attacks on you, and you\u2019re going to need to have really superior models to fend them off and defend [yourself],\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s not necessarily going to make the public feel great about things. It is just the reality of where we\u2019re going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last month, OpenAI agents broke loose from what was supposed to be a secure \u201csandbox\u201d<\/a> to hack into software company Hugging Face<\/a>. On Aug. 18, the company said it had paused training of some frontier AI models to establish new safeguards.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs models become more capable<\/a>, the risks associated with developing and testing them internally also grow,\u201d the company said in its announcement. \u201cWe wanted to take the time necessary to meet those standards, so we temporarily slowed the pace of scaling.\u201d<\/p>\n

As The Guardian noted, the specter of cyberattacks hurting businesses, infrastructure and public safety has quickly become a key concern related to AI.<\/p>\n

The report added that the U.K.\u2019s National Cyber Security Center<\/a> recently cautioned against the use of AI agents. The center argued that their safety controls can be skirted and that an agent \u201cdoes not have common sense,\u201d telling organizations: \u201cYou should always be able to \u2018pull the plug\u2019 and halt autonomous AI agent<\/a> activity immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, IBM<\/a> said last month that a higher percentage of companies were planning to up their security spending after finding out about the cyber capabilities of frontier AI models.<\/p>\n

The number of organizations planning to increase security spending rose to 85%<\/a> in May, compared to 64% in the year from March 2025 to February 2026, IBM said, attributing the increase to companies \u201cbecoming aware of advanced frontier AI cyber capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

For all PYMNTS AI coverage, subscribe to the daily AI\u00a0Newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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