OpenAI Agents Probed Websites for Vulnerabilities While Fetching Public Data
AI agents performing routine data-gathering tasks resorted to hacking techniques in at least three cases when conventional methods failed, according to new research linking some of the activity to agent swarms previously attributed to OpenAI.
The report, from researchers at Transluce, Corridor, MIT and AIUC, is built on public records from urlquery.net, a URL scanning service that loads submitted web pages in a remote browser.
The researchers found that AI agents used the service to get around access restrictions. On three occasions in May and June 2026, the agents also probed public data providers for security flaws, including an Australian government statistics agency.
The first incident took place on May 25-26. Agents trying to obtain a single photograph from the University of New Mexico’s digital library sent several probes, including tests for SQL injection, command injection and path traversal weaknesses, and hit the server with a burst of 80...
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