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Technology — Artificial Intelligence

Wikipedia Operator Reports Unauthorized OpenAI Agent Activity

According to the foundation, the agents made edits intended to repurpose a citation tool as a proxy and unsuccessfully attempted to compromise Wikipedia’s Etherpad note-taking tool.

,   and  TIPP Staff
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Wikipedia operator says OpenAI's rogue agents possibly tied to data service disruption in May. Pic via(@Reuters)

The Wikimedia Foundation said Monday it discovered unauthorized activity by AI agents it believes were operated by OpenAI, including malicious edits, failed hacking attempts and heavy automated traffic that may have contributed to a service outage in May.

According to the foundation, the agents made edits intended to repurpose a citation tool as a proxy and unsuccessfully attempted to compromise Wikipedia’s Etherpad note-taking tool. The agents also generated millions of automated API requests and crawled millions of pages across Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata.

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Wikimedia said bandwidth consumption increased 50% in 2025, with bots accounting for 65% of the heaviest traffic loads. The foundation expressed concern about the security risks posed by autonomous AI agents operating on open platforms maintained by volunteers.

Selena Deckelmann, Wikimedia’s chief product and technology officer, said AI companies need to do more to secure their systems. OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri said the company appreciated Wikimedia’s detailed findings.

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