Hacktron AI Chained Two Bugs to Take Over OpenAI Accounts in 72 Hours; $6,500 Bounty Sparks Outcry

On July 25, security team Hacktron AI (researcher S1r1u5, with members including Harsh Jaiswal) spent under 72 hours—from reading code to building the full exploit chain—taking over ChatGPT/Codex accounts of OpenAI employees and some outside users, reaching linked Outlook, Slack and GitHub services, and having Codex open a PR in the openai/openai internal monorepo as proof. All bugs were fixed, but OpenAI paid only a $6,500 bounty, igniting debate over AI giants' security investment and bug bounty levels.

Confirmed

• Attack chain: HEIF image upload on OpenAI's Discourse forum triggered a libheif heap overflow (HEIF Heist) for remote code execution, chained with an OpenAI SSO flaw for account takeover.
• OpenAI fixed the reported SSO flaw within about 14 hours; Discourse received the report Saturday, replied Sunday, and fixed it Monday.
• OpenAI paid $6,500 for the SSO bug; per @ccerrato147, that bounty covered only the OpenAI-side SSO discovery, with the Discourse forum exploitation proving real impact explicitly excluded from scope.
• Per @pstAsiatech, the team worked under OpenAI's bug bounty program and used Anthropic Claude to help generate exploit code (other posts mention GPT-5.6 involvement); details were revealed via a LiveOverflow video and a team blog on September 18.
• The attackers were white hats who reported and helped fix the flaws (confirmed in Reddit discussion relayed by @EconomySerious). @joshuasaxe claimed the team received "six-figure bounty recognition," conflicting with the widely reported $6,500 figure.

Unconfirmed

• Whether the attackers actually accessed model weights, source code, or private communications; OpenAI has not officially confirmed the scope of impact.

Why it matters

• SemiAnalysis called the $6,500 bounty "absurd and offensive," noting the finder could earn more from X creator payouts; @mvpatel2000 argued this sets a bad precedent that may deter capable researchers from reporting bugs to OpenAI.
• Researchers note a ChatGPT account with access to GitHub, Slack and email is worth orders of magnitude more than $6,500 on gray markets, making the bounty severely mismatched to the risk.
• Reddit discussion relayed by @EconomySerious deemed the bounty clearly out of proportion for a hundred-billion-dollar company facing a potentially huge loss.
• The incident exposes weak links in AI giants' employee account and identity chains; @jessicawruan highlighted AI agents' ability to blindly stack exploits within two days, renewing attention on AI-assisted offense and defense.

2026-09-18 ~ 2026-09-20 · 19 related posts

Full story(4 episodes)→

• Episode 1: Three Hacktron Researchers Breach OpenAI's Internal Systems Using Claude Opus 5(2026-09-18, 59 posts)
• Episode 2: Hacktron AI Chained Two Bugs to Take Over OpenAI Accounts in 72 Hours; $6,500 Bounty Sparks Outcry(2026-09-18, 19 posts)
• Episode 3: Nathan Lambert: Closed-Source Models Are the True Tip of the AI Risk Iceberg(2026-09-18, 6 posts)
• Episode 4: OpenAI Disclosure Saga: CISO Reportedly Sought to Sue Researcher, Later Apologized(2026-09-19, 14 posts)

• OpenAI Pays $6,500 Bounty, Fixes SSO Bug 14 Hours After Report — teortaxesTex · 2026-09-18
• Hackers say they took over OpenAI employee ChatGPT accounts in under 72 hours via two bugs — nptacek · 2026-09-18
• Researchers say they hacked OpenAI in under 72h, taking over employee ChatGPT/Codex accounts — latentjasper · 2026-09-18
• Researchers Chained Two Bugs to Compromise OpenAI Internal Repos in 72 Hours — banteg · 2026-09-18
• [source] OpenAI's $6,500 bounty covered only the SSO bug; the exploit work was ruled out of scope — ccerrato147 · 2026-09-18
• Researcher slams OpenAI's $6,500 bounty: hacked ChatGPT account worth far more on grey market — ccerrato147 · 2026-09-18
• OpenAI hacked by white hats who reported the bugs, rewarded with just $6,500 bounty — EconomySerious · 2026-09-19
• [source] Three Hackers Breached OpenAI Employee Accounts in Under 72 Hours via One Image Upload, Earned $6,500 — KrstABot · 2026-09-19
• SemiAnalysis slams OpenAI's $6500 bug bounty for serious repo leak as "offensive" — mvpatel2000 · 2026-09-19
• AI Agent Lands OpenAI Heap Exploit Blind in Days, $6.5K Bounty Sparks Debate — jessicawruan · 2026-09-19
• Researchers use Claude and GPT-5.6 to ethically hack OpenAI employee accounts — pstAsiatech · 2026-09-19

8 near-duplicate retellings: ccerrato147 · NathanpmYoung · random_walker · anshulkundaje · kevinnbass · geoffwolfe · joshua_saxe · FinanceYF5