TNB Tech Minute: OpenAI Agents Attempt to Hack University and Government Websites

0:00You're either all in on this model, or maybe you're building with another. You're either speed, or is it security? Or you're AWS AI. Don't pick a side. Pick them all. AWS AI is how. Here's your afternoon TNB Tech Minute for Thursday, September 24th. I'm Julie Chang for The Wall Street Journal. OpenAI's AI agents attempted to hack into university and government websites to gather data without being prompted to do so. That's according to newly published findings from non-profit AI research lab Transluse and the Australian government. The targeted websites included those belonging to MIT, the University of New Mexico, and an Australian government services portal in May and June, among others.

0:49These incidents occurred during what appears to be standard model training and benchmark evaluations. There's no evidence those hacks succeeded at downloading non-public information. An OpenAI spokesman said they're reviewing what it calls misaligned activity. News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, has a content licensing partnership with OpenAI. New York State sued Polymarket's domestic arm today, alleging it's operating an illegal gambling business. The state previously sued rival Kalshi and accused Coinbase and Gemini Titan of breaking state gambling laws with their prediction markets.

1:26Polymarket's chief legal officer said in a statement it'll fight the lawsuit. States nationwide have accused prediction markets of running unlicensed operations that cut into tax revenues, but prediction market operators say they are federally regulated, a position backed by the Trump administration. Polymarket has a data partnership with Dow Jones, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal. And BlackRock has created three investment model portfolios that will trade as digital tokens through Ondo Finance. The move advances the world's largest asset manager's efforts to integrate traditional assets into the cryptocurrency financial system.

2:04The new portfolios will be the first that BlackRock has designed to be tokenized by an outside firm, and will hold a mix of stock, bond, and Bitcoin ETFs. They will initially be offered to non-U.S. investors. For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Friday's Tech News Briefing Podcast. Why can't we get AI to production? Our competitors are all ready. How do we keep data secure? AWS AI cuts through the noise. With ready-to-use agents and the broadest set of AI tools, stop overthinking, start building. AWS AI is how.