ChatGPT maker OpenAI has announced a new initiative to protect critical infrastructure and promised US$1 billion towards training, cyber uplift, and technical support for entities in the US and abroad.
Daybreak for Frontline Defenders will subsidise access to frontier cyber capabilities alongside technology partnerships designed to protect essential services and “put frontier cyber security in the hands of frontline defenders around the world”.
The project will begin with Daybreak for America, which will prioritise water and wastewater systems and electric grid operators, as well as state and local government organisations and banks.
“Many of these teams defend complex and often aging systems against faster-moving threats without the budgets, tools, or specialised expertise available to large enterprises,” OpenAI said in a 3 September statement.
“Daybreak access can help them review legacy code, analyse suspicious activity, identify and validate vulnerabilities, prioritise the most serious risks, and develop and test fixes. In the coming weeks, we intend to expand this model to partner countries.”
The company said the new initiative will build on the support already offered to US water system operators in the wake of a wave of cyber attacks and disruption thought to be caused by Iranian hackers.
Daybreak itself was launched earlier this year in the wake of Anthropic’s Project Glasswing. Like Glasswing, the Daybreak Cyber Partner Program invited companies to sign up to access OpenAI’s cyber security and vulnerability-finding models. A total of 2,000 organisations, including cyber security firms and defence organisations, have already signed up to Daybreak.
“Alongside broader access, we are increasing hands-on support for frontline defenders in essential sectors,” OpenAI said.
“We have convened an ongoing series of meetings with frontline defenders, including utilities, state and local governments, community banks, and others, to learn from their work and help them use our tools to harden their systems, and we will continue those convenings as Daybreak for Frontline Defenders expands.”
The initiative will also see OpenAI establish a pilot program for a Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Centre, or MS-ISAC, initially focused on “state, local, tribal, and territorial cyber defenders” in the US.
“The defender’s window will not stay open indefinitely,” OpenAI said.
“The opportunity now is to make sure the advantages frontier AI can give defenders reach beyond the largest companies and best-resourced security teams – and into the communities and institutions whose security affects millions of people.”
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