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Revealing the details of how OpenAI agents hacked Hugging Face

755 points · 472 comments · specked-citrus

  1. GuB-42 · · focus · HN ↗
    So ugly...

    It looks like a primitive chess engine, trying every move, no matter how stupid, until it works. Relying on its ability to do millions of operations rather than having a plan.

    People will try stuff too, but once there is an opening, they will consolidate, generalize, simplify,... before going to the next step. The agents didn't, it is a huge, vaguely directed mess.

    Also, it looked so "loud", querying millions of URL with weird requests. The sandbox as weak as it can get, and there is absolutely zero smart extrusion detection or it would have found it. They used their best AI for attacking, but nothing for protection.

    1. ctolsen · · focus · HN ↗
      My biggest takeaway from this is just how godawful the sandboxing is. The stuff written up in OpenAIs report says more about lack of extremely basic sysadmin skills than anything else.

      I’m not that surprised about models with endless compute being capable of this, I’m more surprised that a company with the resources they have apparently can only create a sandbox that a half skilled human operator could have broken out of easily.

      1. foobarbecue · · focus · HN ↗
        And their latest breathless &quot;rogue agent hack&quot; brag is about how they compromised customer data <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;technology&#x2F;2026&#x2F;sep&#x2F;25&#x2F;openai-agents-leaked-53-images-chatgpt" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;technology&#x2F;2026&#x2F;sep&#x2F;25&#x2F;openai-ag... . How are they getting away with this level of malpractice???
        1. rjbwork · · focus · HN ↗
          &gt;How are they getting away with this level of malpractice???

          Their interests intersect with those of most of the richest and most powerful people in the world. They rarely face consequences for bad behavior unless they harm others in the club.

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