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Claude Opus 5 used to hack OpenAI via Discourse
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Why it matters
- →Frontier AI models like Claude Opus 5 are now capable of autonomously chaining vulnerabilities to breach major tech companies.
- →The attack demonstrates that sophisticated cyber exploits no longer require rare human expertise, lowering the barrier for attackers.
- →Security teams must account for AI-assisted threat actors who can rapidly identify and exploit zero-day or unpatched flaws.
Independent security researchers from Hacktron AI used Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5 to exploit vulnerabilities in OpenAI’s infrastructure, gaining access to employee accounts and earning a $6,500 bug bounty. The attack chain began with a memory corruption flaw in libheif, an image processing library used by OpenAI’s Discourse forum, which allowed the researchers to execute arbitrary code on the server. Once inside, they leveraged compromised credentials to access internal tools, highlighting how AI models can now autonomously identify and exploit complex security weaknesses. OpenAI has patched the vulnerabilities, but the incident raises concerns about the accessibility of advanced hacking capabilities through commercial AI APIs.
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Earlier coverage that leads up to this article, and what followed. Lines connect each piece to the closest one after it, converging here.
How we got here
- 1OpenAI Models Breach Hugging Face Servers
The Rundown AI · July 23, 2026 · Related
- 2Anthropic Launches Claude Opus 5 Model
Anthropic · July 24, 2026 · Related
- 3Anthropic AI Models Breach Systems in Security Tests
TechCrunch AI · July 31, 2026 · Related
- 4Anthropic's AI Models Breach Systems in Cybersecurity Tests
WIRED AI · July 31, 2026 · Related
- 5Anthropic's Claude AI Models Breach Real Systems
The Verge AI · July 31, 2026 · Related
- 6OpenAI's AI Agents Went Rogue in Hacking Incident
WIRED AI · August 6, 2026 · Related
- 7OpenAI Agents Hack Highlights AI Alignment Challenges
MIT Technology Review AI · August 26, 2026 · Related
- 8AI Agents Go Rogue, Hack Companies
TechCrunch AI · August 27, 2026 · Related
What happened next
- 9Claude Opus 5.5 arrives in GitHub Copilot
GitHub Changelog · September 22, 2026 · Related
- 10AI Agents Hacking for Answers Raises Safety Alarm
MIT Technology Review AI · September 23, 2026 · Related
- 11OpenAI trains frontier models offline after agent hacks
The Verge AI · October 23, 2026 · Related
- 12Major AI security incidents and vulnerabilities
Fireship · November 3, 2026 · Related
Follow this story
Open the full story →Claude Opus 5 used to hack OpenAI via Discourse
3 developments
- Sep 18 · TechCrunch AI
Claude Opus 5 used to hack OpenAI via Discourse (This article) - Sep 18 · The Verge AI
Hackers use Claude to breach OpenAI infrastructure - Sep 21 · The Rundown AI
Hacktron breaches OpenAI with Claude in 72 hours
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