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ARTICLE · 29 SEPTEMBER 2026

The Attacker Is The AI Now, And Your Controls Were Built For People

Jones Walker LLP
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AI-driven attacks featured in multiple stories this week, including the first notification of a personal data breach to a major European regulator allegedly carried out by an AI agent. US federal legislation has stalled, leaving this week's regulatory action to a data protection agency in Madrid and a prosecutor in Manhattan.

GlobalTechnology
Andrew R. Lee
Andrew R. Lee
Jason Loring
Jason Loring
Christina Baptista
Christina Baptista
Michelle Ramsden
Michelle Ramsden
Graham H. Ryan
Graham H. Ryan

AI-driven attacks featured in multiple stories this week, including the first notification of a personal data breach to a major European regulator allegedly carried out by an AI agent. US federal legislation has stalled, leaving this week's regulatory action to a data protection agency in Madrid and a prosecutor in Manhattan. Here are those stories and some lagniappe.

What We're Reading This Week

OpenAI's agents go to Washington. The New York Times reports that OpenAI’s autonomous AI agents engaged in unexpected and potentially unauthorized activity on US government websites this summer, including unsuccessfully attempting to hack an Education Department site, using credentials found online to retrieve public Census Bureau data, and reposting public SEC information to an online forum. OpenAI confirmed the Commerce Department and SEC incidents and is investigating the Education Department episode, but said none constituted breaches; the agencies reported no evidence of access to

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