Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee [Part 2], , 2:55:08 to 3:08:23
The committee reviews the timeline of ministerial briefings regarding the OpenAI incident and the release of the Annual Threat Report.
Topics: National security, Prime Minister and Cabinet
Speakers: Abigail Bradshaw, Speaker 3, Speaker 1, Stephanie Crowe, Unknown Speaker, Interjection
>> Thanks. Thank you. Um it would be ASD's role to advise the advise ministers on that particular hack. Is that correct?
>> Um are you talking about the the Open AI incident?
>> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Are you aware of um when the Prime Minister first became aware of the incident?
>> I don't I'm not sure that I do know exactly when he became aware of um the incident.
>> Okay. So you didn't break the news to
>> No, Senator.
>> No. Did the government inform you about
>> That they had advised the Prime Minister Did government advise us when
>> Yeah.
>> when they advised the Prime Minister? >> So who >> No, I wasn't we we were not aware we were aware generally that because of the um uh significance of and the context of the matter that it would be a matter that would be briefed up to the Prime Minister particularly in the context of of him being at the UN.
>> Okay, so when they advised the Prime Minister, the government came to you [clears throat] and then you briefed the Prime Minister on what it all meant?
>> Um no, Senator. We did not ASD did not brief the Prime Minister.
>> You didn't so you didn't provide any advice on it at all?
>> Not not to the Prime Minister. We most certainly did to to Ministers.
>> Okay, which Ministers were they?
>> Uh I have spoken with um Minister Burke, Minister Gallagher um Miss Crowe has spoken with the Deputy Prime Minister. >> Other Ministers?
>> Minister Gallagher and Minister Burke.
>> Um what why not the Prime Minister?
because there are others who were reporting that advice to him from us. We don't necessarily brief him personally on every issue, but ensure that officers that do brief him have it. I also think he was in involved in international travel.
>> The Deputy Prime Minister at the time was the acting Prime Minister. Senator
>> beg your pardon. That's correct.
>> Okay, so he was off to New York. and 2 weeks after the notification he revealed the incident. Why why did it take so long to notify the public of it? Are you aware of that?
So, I think um as the Deputy Prime Minister then, well, Miles and Minister Gallagher said publicly um during their statement um the incident was reported uh via an email to Services Australia as a vulnerability disclosure. uh on the 10th of September on the 15th uh of September uh Services Australia shared that um email advice with ASD. ASD immediately reached out to Open AI to get more content. At that stage given nature of the advice from Open AI which was a vulnerability disclosure, it was being treated as exactly that. As we've discussed this evening with Senator Pocock it is a um certainly a a very normal process for ASD to deal with a vulnerability disclosure and it is in fact part and parcel of the mainstream work of Open AI and others to work with researchers to discover vulnerabilities. >> Mhm. >> The novel aspects of this incident were not disclosed until the morning of the sun of Sunday the 20th. Those are features such as the fact that the vulnerability was discovered during model testing um that it was in fact what we would describe as a misaligned model. That is a a model doing things that it was not intended to do. >> That it was an agent involved, that the model was in fact not publicly available, that the model or the agent had un- un- undertaken unauthorized access, and that the model had operated without safeguards. All of those aspects did not become clear and were not communicated at a senior level by Open AI right until Sunday, um the 20th. At which stage we had organized a technical engagement because there's a process of verification which is required. Technical verification requires logs to assure [clears throat] ourselves that in fact um the technical advice contained in the email is practically true. Uh and so on Sunday the 20th, that was the point at which um this matter was elevated and I spoke with um uh ministers on the Sunday morning, and then a process of briefing began quickly after that. And then as I as I mentioned and as the DPM uh and Minister Gallagher mentioned, we had the technical exchange on the 22nd.
>> Okay. So, it wasn't with the Prime Minister until all that time. You sort of did all that testing in between. Uh you're engaging with uh Open AI. It went from Services Australia to you. You engaged with Open AI. Uh and so that took 12 days and then you informed the Prime Minister and the DPM who was acting Prime Minister here. Is that correct?
>> Senator, we got the initial advice on the evening, I think around 5:30 on the evening of the 15th. We immediately an hour after receiving that advice reached out to Open AI an hour later.
>> Yep.
>> As I said to you, we did not get confirmation of the novel aspects of what had actually occurred from a senior level out of open AI until Sunday the 20th.
>> Yep. That's
>> it take that is that's 5 days.
>> Yep. I'm I'm just
>> And actually four if you discount
>> Yes.
>> the hour. >> That's right. I'm just trying to work
out when it got across to the Prime Minister. We just want to understand when the Prime Minister
>> Yeah.
>> was first made aware of it. Do you know when he was first made aware?
>> I'm sorry, Senator. I don't I do not.
>> Okay, were you were you informed the Prime Minister would be would reveal the open AI incident from New York on the 26th?
>> I'm sorry. I should just clarify also that as Ms. Crowe's mentioned, the Deputy Prime Minister was the acting >> Yeah. And so, can you just confirm that briefing time? >> the Deputy Prime Minister is the acting Prime Minister.
>> Yep. I briefed >> him.
>> That's okay. That's all right. I just probably would prefer to more know about the know more about uh the the revelation of the incident in New York, whether you were aware that it was going to be revealed there in New York. Did the PM Did PM C or PM R request any information from ASD for that press conference?
>> Well, ASD routinely briefed ministers' offices ahead of that, but we were not involved in determining the nature of when that statement or how it would occur.
Um just you you mentioned before the word novel. Are you Is the attack methodology itself novel?
>> Absolutely. >> Yes. That is in fact, as the Deputy Prime Minister said said um uh during the press conference with Minister Gallagher, in and of itself, the incident um and the consequences of the unauthorized access are not the serious aspect of this. The fact that those novel aspects not nor is the vulnerability frankly in a pub what is a public-facing website that is designed to store um aggregated statistical uh information. The novel aspects of this is that it was during model testing um that it was a misaligned model. That is it is an agent that is working in a way that is not intended by the operators of that model. The risk of misalignment and the fact that that occurred on Australian uh infrastructure is most This is the first time that that has occurred in Australia that we know of and probably in in to my knowledge the second destination in the world.
>> Okay. And could an individual have gained the same access to the um uh the same unauthorized access to the Medicare information without use of AI?
>> Uh I'm not sure about the answer to that, Senator. I think it would actually depend on how long an individual persisted with that sort of attack. I mean, we are talking here about a very powerful model in a testing mode and we know that those models are capable of detecting vulnerability in code that are not not actually able to be found or not without enormous effort by human.
>> How can you be assured that no other attacks have happened on um Australian networks before?
>> Uh well, I can't be.
Um and just Sorry, just one final question on the tenders. Was the decision to remove um the decision to stop publishing tenders, was that a decision of government or was that a decision of ASD?
>> Uh it was my advice.
>> Your advice to government new >> Okay. Thank you very much.
Okay. Well, I don't believe there's any other questions on that right. You can
go ahead. >> Senator, may may I just um please I didn't um do an opening statement, but if you don't mind um we did release this week the annual threat report. Yes, please do. We we did talk in that threat report about um a really dynamic time in terms of the cyber context that from an ASD perspective we are as set out in that report responding to significant uptick in in cyber attacks, some of which are associated with um AI and the capacity to identify vulnerabilities um which paradoxically is also the same sort of technology that's going to change our prospects. Our incident workload has doubled. 12 months ago we were managing about 40 incidents at a time. Today we are managing as of today over 100. Critical vulnerabilities are accelerating. We're tracking 261 critical vulnerabilities in the last 7 days. Published vulnerabilities this time last year 4,274 and today 15,719. In that context I want to thank the officers of ASD who protect our digital networks and also CISOs all over Australia who are defending those digital networks. And as people go off to Christmas this year and um have their video calls with loved ones or stream Die Hard or Love Actually, whichever genre you're into, or you're downloading your recipes
>> the Australians play cricket, I don't
>> Streaming Australians playing cricket, buying tickets for a holiday, doing your shopping online the defenders of those digital networks will be hard at work making sure that that happens. And for the ASD officers and for CISOs in industry that work with us, I I to thank them.
Yes. All right. I'll give you a bit of a shout out this week in the media about that report. Well done. Now, it's scary stuff, but uh uh I think it's fair to say I think there were five essential actions that uh yeah, people and businesses need to take note of. Worth reading it. What was the website again, Abby?
>> cyber.gov.au
>> That's right. cyber.gov.au. Please log on. Download what you can.
>> Thank you for the um
>> Have fun.
>> for the call out. Appreciate