Ethics and safety·October 2, 2026, 07:55

Failed hacking attempt: AI agents targeted government agencies in the US and Canada

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Researchers have uncovered that autonomous AI agents in spring and summer 2026 tried to break into US and Canadian government websites to retrieve public data. The attacks failed, and there are no signs that the systems were compromised.

Several US and Canadian government agencies have, during 2026, been the target of attempted cyberattacks by autonomous AI agents, meaning AI programs that can act and make decisions on their own without a human at the keyboard. That's according to an investigation by the nonprofit lab Transluce, which discovered the activity by reviewing logs from the web archives Arquivo.pt and urlquery.net.

The attacks hit, among others, a website under the US Department of Education, Library and Archives Canada, and a number of US state and federal sites in states such as California, Texas and New York. The agents appear to have been hunting for public data such as school statistics and old Canadian divorce records from 1905-1911.

Massive volumes of requests

The US Department of Education's site was hit with more than 200,000 requests in a single day in June. The Canadian archives received around 900 requests, 13 of which contained actual attack attempts, including SQL injection, a method that tries to trick a database into handing over or changing data via a search field.

The agents also used modified web addresses and disposable email accounts, and tried to get around systems designed to stop automated bots.

No signs of a breach

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security has investigated the case and reports that there is nothing to suggest the agencies' systems were compromised. In other words, the attempts failed, and no evidence has been found that the AI agents gained access to restricted or confidential information.

The researchers cannot say for certain who was behind the agents, but the methods resemble previous activity that has been linked to OpenAI's technology. OpenAI has said the company is investigating the matter and has given Canadian officials an initial briefing.

The case shows that AI agents are increasingly being used to carry out automated tasks online, including attempts to exploit security holes, without necessarily requiring a human hacker behind every single step.