OpenAI to provide Ukraine with tools to combat cyberattacks

Technology giant OpenAI will provide the Ukrainian government with free access to its AI-powered cybersecurity system Daybreak to help protect civilian infrastructure such as hospitals and power plants from cyberattacks.

Source: BBC

Details: According to the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA), the country's national cyber incident response team, nearly 6,000 attacks were recorded in Ukraine in 2025.

Daybreak can rapidly identify vulnerabilities in digital systems and help develop measures to address them. Under the agreement, Ukraine will gain access to OpenAI's advanced GPT-5.6 Sol model – a competitor to Anthropic's Mythos and Fable.

George Osborne, former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer and now head of OpenAI for Countries, said: "Protecting civilian infrastructure means defending it against both physical and digital attacks, so people can continue to live, work and access essential services."

Reacting to the news, Rafe Pilling, Senior Director of Threat Intelligence at cybersecurity company Sophos, said Russian offensive cyber operations had been a "key component" of the Kremlin's aggression against Ukraine since 2014.

"Any initiative that strengthens Ukraine's already highly capable, but heavily burdened, cyber defence efforts is a welcome development and could provide a valuable force multiplier," he said.

Jamie MacColl, a senior research fellow specialising in cybersecurity at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), told the BBC that Western tech companies have been supporting Ukraine for some time – partly for altruistic reasons, but also because they gain highly valuable data and intelligence in an active conflict environment.

He believes access to Daybreak will be useful, particularly given the scale of Russian cyberattacks targeting the country.

Background: Anthropic foiled attempts by hackers to use Claude to conduct a cyber-espionage campaign against Ukraine that was suspected of being linked to Russia.

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