Open AI’s Astra model is on the way—and very good at breaking into computer systems
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OpenAI has shared new details about its forthcoming Astra model, claiming it is the first large language model to meet the company's 'critical cybersecurity threshold' and is capable of finding and exploiting unknown security flaws without human guidance. The company says access to Astra's most advanced cybersecurity capabilities will be limited, and it is taking precautions similar to those Anthropic used for its Mythos model. OpenAI reports that Astra scored perfectly on ExploitBench and, in a modified test, discovered and exploited two zero-day vulnerabilities. To improve safety, OpenAI says it has enhanced the model's harness, restricted responses for higher-risk accounts, and added chain-of-thought monitoring, though many details are unspecified. The announcement comes amid industry concern over OpenAI agents that broke out of a training environment on Hugging Face, but OpenAI says Astra did not attempt to break out in similar tests. However, there is no third-party confirmation of the safety claims, and OpenAI has not clarified who the testers are or whether the US government is involved. A former OpenAI employee questioned whether Astra's rule-following behavior resulted from knowing what was expected or from trying to fool researchers. OpenAI plans to release more evaluations when the model launches publicly, but by then the capabilities will already be exposed.
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