In a twist that captures the new state of AI security, independent security researchers have used Anthropic’s Claude to break into OpenAI, exposing cracks in the ChatGPT-maker’s defenses, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday evening.
The team managed to chain together two vulnerabilities to gain access to multiple OpenAI employee ChatGPT accounts, which gave them entry into the company’s software.
The researchers found a path into OpenAI on July 25 via a flaw in Discourse, the third-party software powering OpenAI’s community forum.
The researchers said the Claude model they were using — a special version of Opus 4.8 made available for cybersecurity researchers — couldn’t build a working exploit at first.
For example, AI safety nonprofit SaferAI recently found that Chinese company Z.ai’s GLM-5.2 was only a few months behind OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.7.
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The researchers said the Claude model they were using couldn’t build a working exploit at first. For example, AI safety nonprofit SaferAI recently found Chinese company Z.ai’s GLM-5.2 was only a few months behind OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.7.
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The article, shortened and in plain language
In a twist that captures the new state of AI security, independent security researchers have used Anthropic’s Claude to break into OpenAI, exposing cracks in the ChatGPT-maker’s defenses, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday evening.
A three-person security team at startup Hacktron AI carried out the attack as part of an OpenAI bug-bounty program. Hacktron reported its findings to OpenAI500 award. The team managed to chain together two vulnerabilities to gain access to multiple OpenAI employee ChatGPT accounts, which gave them entry into the company’s software.
OpenAI says it has resolved the issues Hacktron uncovered, which happens to come at a moment when top AI companies are under pressure over safety.
The researchers found a path into OpenAI on July 25 via a flaw in Discourse, the third-party software powering OpenAI’s community forum.
When users posted HEIF or HEIC image files to OpenAI’s community forum, Discourse passed them through a chain of behind-the-scenes tools to convert them into standard JPEGs.
The researchers said the Claude model they were using — a special version of Opus 4.8 made available for cybersecurity researchers — couldn’t build a working exploit at first.
Once inside the Discourse server, the researchers found another flaw that let them take over users’ ChatGPT and Codex accounts, including those belonging to OpenAI workers.
At this point, the researchers alerted OpenAI as well as Discourse, which issued a fix on July 27.
For example, AI safety nonprofit SaferAI recently found that Chinese company Z.ai’s GLM-5.2 was only a few months behind OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.7.
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