Wikimedia Foundation reports activity by OpenAI bots linked to May outage

<figure> <img alt="Robot hacker typing on a keyboard." src="https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/09/STKS533_AI_AGENTS_HACKING_D.png?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;crop=0,0,100,100" /> <figcaption> </figcaption> </figure> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, has reported discovering activity by OpenAI agents on its platforms. This follows recent disclosures about AI agents accessing third-party websites and services.</p> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">The reported activity includes edits to Wikimedia wikis and unsuccessful attempts to exploit the Etherpad note-taking tool hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. The foundation noted that heavy traffic from these activities may have contributed to a partial outage that occurred in May, according to a blog post from the organization. However, the Wikimedia Foundation stated that it did not find evidence that its systems were used for coordinated attacks.</p> <p><a href="https://www.theverge.com/news/1004929/wikipedia-openai-rogue-bots-wikimedia-foundation-outage">Read the full story at The Verge.</a></p>