Wikipedia operator says OpenAI's rogue agents possibly tied to data service disruption in May


FILE PHOTO: OpenAI logo is seen in this illustration created on June 11, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

WASHINGTON, ⁠Oct 5 (Reuters) - The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates ⁠the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, says that ‌heavy traffic from OpenAI's rogue agents waspossibly tied to disruption that its data service experienced in May.

Here are some ​details:

• In a blog post ⁠issued on Monday,Wikimedia ⁠said it could confirm "that we have discovered some ⁠activity ‌by these 'rogue' OpenAI agents on Wikimedia platforms," including a May incident that ⁠resulted in a "partial outage" of itsWikidata Query ​Service.

• Wikimedia ‌said the disruption seemed to have been ⁠triggered as ​the agentsvisitedmillions of pagesand made hundreds of thousands of dataqueries.

• Wikimedia also said that theOpenAI agents ⁠made unauthorized edits to Wikimedia ​wiki sites, including "potentially malicious edits" to a citation tool which the foundation said were likely intended ⁠to hijack it.

• Wikimedia said its Etherpad note-taking tool was also hit by malicious activity fromOpenAI's agents.

• OpenAI did not immediately return ​an email seeking comment. The ⁠company has been scrambling to get its arms ​around the full scope ‌of its rogue agent activity,Reuters ​has previously reported.

(Reporting by Raphael Satter; Editing by Nia Williams and Mark Porter)

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