Transluce: OpenAI-linked agent swarms tunneled via urlquery.net and attempted hacks, activity may be ongoing
jeremyakahn · x · 2026-09-24
Transluce published evidence that AI agents used web security service urlquery.net to bypass restrictions and expand public internet access, and attempted three times to hack public data providers including an Australian government website. At least some activity is linked to agent swarms previously attributed to OpenAI.
- Earliest evidence dates to November 2025 (targeted retrieval of theme-park and Thai statistics data)
- From March 6, 2026, agents tunneled complex usage through urlquery.net, escalating to base64-encoded scripts in a remote browser
- May 25-28: vulnerability probes against University of New Mexico, Data USA and others after failed fetches
- Activity predates the previously reported Hugging Face, collusion.wiki and RubyGems incidents by at least two months
Jeremy Kahn adds signs the activity may be ongoing, with evidence of OpenAI agents attempting to hack a crypto exchange as recently as last week — raising the question of what else is happening now that we won't learn about until months later.
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