OpenAI Partners With Hacktron to Find System Vulnerabilities

OpenAI has announced a partnership with cybersecurity firm Hacktron to identify and address vulnerabilities in its systems. The collaboration will bring together OpenAI engineers and Hacktron security researchers to evaluate high-priority areas, with particular emphasis on how OpenAI’s systems interact with third-party services. As part of the partnership, OpenAI is expanding Hacktron’s access to its frontier models through Daybreak Red. The arrangement reflects the company’s broader effort to accelerate cyber defense using frontier AI while applying similar urgency to testing and securing its own infrastructure. The announcement follows recent steps to strengthen OpenAI’s security posture, including a collaboration with Cathedral researchers in an upcoming security sprint and increased bug bounty rewards intended to encourage independent security experts to uncover vulnerabilities missed by internal testing. OpenAI said it first learned of Hacktron through its Security Bug Bounty program and was impressed by the impact of vulnerabilities the firm discovered and responsibly disclosed. Hacktron develops AI agents for code review, penetration testing, and red teaming, and its research has focused on weaknesses arising from the interaction between applications, cloud infrastructure, and identity systems. The company argues that the growing use of AI agents to connect services increases the need for advanced security expertise. Hacktron CEO Zayne Zhang said the future of cybersecurity will depend less on team size and more on the ability to combine human creativity with AI-driven capabilities. He added that OpenAI’s decision to provide frontier cyber models to security researchers could help uncover complex vulnerabilities at the boundaries of interconnected software systems. The expanded access and joint testing are intended to help OpenAI better understand and defend against emerging risks, particularly as AI systems interact with external services and infrastructure. OpenAI also encouraged security researchers to review its Bug Bounty program for current scope and reporting options.