Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has launched a “rapid review” to assess government cyber crisis response arrangements after an OpenAI agent gained unauthorised access to a Medicare statistics portal. 

The review comes as the ChatGPT maker disclosed last week another breach on a government agency. A rogue agent broke into a NSW government department site and accessed historical non-public data on bushfires. 

The federal government says the review will be led by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, in collaboration with the National Cyber Security Coordinator, Australian Signals Directorate, Australian AI Safety Institute and Services Australia. 

“It will examine whether existing legislative, governance and information-sharing arrangements are fit for purpose to prepare for and respond to cyber incidents involving AI,” the government says. 

“It will also identify opportunities to strengthen the resilience of government systems and support Australia's preparedness for emerging AI-related risks.” 

Mr Albanese revealed the Medicare cyber breach during a trip to New York last month for the United Nations Assembly. 

The breach occurred in June and involved an OpenAI agent that was undergoing training by the ChatGPT maker, which only informed the government of the incident last month. 

“The AI agent accessed both public and non-public files,” Mr Albanese said in New York. 

“This incident is a clear illustration of why we are moving to establish Australian standards for AI, why we’ve established the Joint Parliamentary Committee as well.” 

The Joint Parliamentary Committee inquiry on AI is holding public hearings this week and is expected to deliver its final report by November 30. 

OpenAI and rival Anthropic have made submissions to the inquiry and their submissions have been listed for tomorrow’s hearing in Sydney.