OpenAI said on November 6, 2026 that it is partnering with security firm Hacktron to find vulnerabilities in OpenAI's own systems. Under the arrangement, OpenAI engineers and Hacktron's security researchers will choose high-priority areas to test together, concentrating on the points where OpenAI's systems interact with third-party services. OpenAI is also expanding Hacktron's access to its frontier models through Daybreak Red.
The relationship grew out of OpenAI's Security Bug Bounty program. OpenAI said it became familiar with Hacktron there and was impressed by the impact of the vulnerabilities the firm's researchers discovered and disclosed. Hacktron builds AI agents for code review, penetration testing, and red teaming, and OpenAI noted that its published research has uncovered weaknesses in how applications, cloud infrastructure, and identity systems interact.
OpenAI framed the partnership as part of applying the same urgency to its own defenses that it brings to accelerating cyber defense with frontier AI. In the same post, the company pointed to two other steps taken earlier in the week: researchers from Cathedral will work alongside OpenAI's teams in its next security sprint, and OpenAI raised its bug bounty rewards to give independent researchers more reason to pursue issues its internal testing may have missed. As AI agents link services in new ways, OpenAI said, testing those connections more deeply will help it strengthen its defenses.
Hacktron CEO Zayne Zhang, in a statement published by both companies, argued that the future of cybersecurity will be decided less by the size of a security team than by how well it combines human creativity with AI-driven capabilities. He credited OpenAI with putting frontier cyber models in researchers' hands to uncover complex vulnerabilities at the boundaries between interconnected systems, and said Hacktron is excited to deepen the partnership to help secure OpenAI and the broader software ecosystem.
Hacktron's own announcement, dated the same day, describes the work as prioritized testing of connections with third-party services and says the collaboration follows its participation in OpenAI's bug bounty program. Reuters, via The Economic Times, and Silicon Report independently reported the partnership and the expanded Daybreak Red access. Neither company disclosed financial terms, a timeline, or which specific systems are in scope; OpenAI directed researchers to its Security Bug Bounty program to see what is in scope and to submit findings.