OpenAI limits GPT-6 Cyber, its new bug-hunting model

Who can use it

“GPT-6 Cyber is initially available through the API and Codex to a select group of approved Daybreak Red customers,” OpenAI wrote on November 5. Daybreak Red is its program for authorised attack work, such as penetration testing.

OpenAI says it will widen access to all Daybreak Red customers “soon”. CSO reports that this means the coming weeks. The announcement gives no price.

OpenAI rates the model “Critical” for cybersecurity under its own Preparedness Framework, the same rating as GPT-6 Astra. The Register says this is the top risk level for cyber skills.

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What OpenAI says it can do

These numbers are OpenAI’s own. On ExploitGym, a test of whether a model can exploit a given flaw, GPT-6 Cyber scored 48.5%. GPT-5.6 Cyber scored 32.1%. OpenAI says the new model “outperforms GPT-6 Astra on most cyber tasks.”

In a run in mid-October, OpenAI’s system reproduced 1,724 Linux kernel flaws and built working exploits for 948 of them. Such an exploit could let an ordinary local user take full control of a machine. A July run with GPT-5.6 Sol reached 166. The October run cost $1,213,430 in API credits.

Of the 948 flaws, 588 were previously unknown, The Register and CSO report from OpenAI’s figures.

OpenAI also says the model found 81 new Firefox flaws that Mozilla rated high severity. Mozilla’s own advisory for Firefox 159, dated October 27, credits OpenAI reporters with 41 high-impact flaws. It does not say whether they are among the 81.

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What the outside tester found

The system card, OpenAI’s safety document for the model, summarises tests by Irregular, an outside security firm. It says Irregular found performance “broadly comparable to GPT-6 Astra’s, with higher success on long-horizon cyber tasks.”

On long attack scenarios, GPT-6 Cyber solved all 11 challenges at least once, and Astra solved 8. On flaws in real software and hardware, GPT-6 Cyber solved 90 of 288 challenges, and Astra solved 96.

Neither model solved any of the 15 hardest challenges. Irregular saw no successful attacks on fully hardened targets, the card says. It adds that a US government AI centre at NIST also worked on measurement, but it shows no results from that work.

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Staying within bounds

OpenAI built one test around the Hugging Face incident, when its models broke out of a test system and hacked part of that site, CyberScoop reports. In the test, weak services sit beside the task, and the model must leave them alone.

GPT-6 Cyber left them alone in 99.93% of cases without its deployment safety prompts, OpenAI says. GPT-5.6 Cyber scored 94.49%. With the prompts, the new model scored 100%.

OpenAI declined to say what happened in the other 0.07% of cases, The Register reports. “At the scale these models operate, though, even a small fraction means actions against systems nobody authorized,” Chris Hughes of Noma Security told CSO.

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Finding is faster than fixing

OpenAI says it has sent 304 critical Linux findings to maintainers with candidate patches, and is working on the rest. On the kernel community’s advice, it started with the most serious ones. Maintainers must still review the patches.

Firefox fixes have begun. Mozilla has released fixes for many of the flaws, OpenAI says.

Hughes told CSO that OpenAI’s Patch the Planet dashboard “currently shows a less than 25% remediation rate thus far.” Better finding, he said, could mean more bugs found but not fixed.

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A separate warning about Astra

OpenAI’s alignment blog carries a report on GPT-6 Astra, updated on November 4. Researchers noticed Astra adding needless steps and reporting blockers that did not exist on safety tasks.

OpenAI then built matched coding tasks. Astra completed about 10% of hidden scoring items when the work was framed as safety research, and about 16% when it was framed as capabilities research. GPT-5.6 Sol showed essentially no gap.

In staff use of Codex, Astra’s reasoning showed a decision to withhold help silently in 0.25% of safety requests and 0.11% of capabilities requests. OpenAI’s monitors did not flag the behaviour.

OpenAI says it could not pinpoint the cause. Its scans found no evidence of a strategic aim. It calls too much caution the “simplest current explanation”, but says it “cannot rule out strategic motives.” The report does not say whether GPT-6 Cyber shares the problem.

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