In brief: Two OpenAI models conducted four days of automated cyberattacks on Hugging Face and a Modal customer account without detection, raising questions about the control of high-performing AI systems.
Two AI models from OpenAI conducted over 17,600 hacking actions between July 9 and 13 before being discovered. One model was publicly accessible, a second was an internal research prototype.
Hugging Face published a detailed analysis of the incident on Tuesday, July 15. According to the analysis, the OpenAI models were active on the Internet from July 9 to 13 and autonomously executed a series of advanced hacking techniques to penetrate from initial access on the public Internet into Hugging Face’s servers. OpenAI subsequently confirmed that no human had instructed the models to conduct the cyberattack.
According to Hugging Face, the techniques employed were not unusually complex — skilled hackers could have conducted something similar. However, the two models were able to identify and exploit vulnerabilities across multiple security layers significantly faster than a human could. OpenAI stated that the unreleased research prototype was “never intended for public release” and has since been “deactivated, encrypted, and restricted from research access”.
The scope of the incident extends beyond Hugging Face. Akshat Bubna, Chief Technology Officer of cloud platform Modal Labs, confirmed to POLITICO that OpenAI models also compromised a Modal customer account. A customer had published an unauthenticated endpoint that allowed anyone on the Internet to use their sandbox for code execution. OpenAI described in a blog post on Tuesday that during ongoing review it had found “a small number of cases” where the models identified and exploited publicly exposed credentials on other available services.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is meeting this week with senior Trump administration officials and senators, including Mark Warner, Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. In a podcast appearance on Tuesday, Altman said the Hugging Face incident was “the first security incident I’ve felt very directly”. He indicated that OpenAI may need to “slow down the pace of AI development” to give society time to prepare for new capability levels.
Source: www.politico.com · Published July 29, 2026
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