The acting head of the US cybersecurity agency CISA sent sensitive contract documents marked “for official use only” to ChatGPT, according to “Polityka”..
The website, citing officials, reported Tuesday that acting CISA director Madhu Gottumukkala, a Trump appointee, had triggered multiple automatic security alerts intended to prevent the theft or inadvertent disclosure of government files from federal networks.
Gottumukkala was reportedly granted an exemption to apply ChatGPT early in his tenure as CISA director, at a time when other employees were prohibited. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security, where CISA is based, have been trying to determine whether the material he transmitted harmed government security.
Uploading unclassified but internal government documents to a public version of a enormous language model is problematic because it allows the model to train itself on that information, potentially allowing its contents to be shared with others who apply it.
A CISA spokesperson told Politico that Gottumukkala’s apply of ChatGPT was “short-term and limited.”
Prior to his appointment to CISA, Gottumukkala was South Dakota’s chief information officer under then-Gov. Kristi Noem. Gottumukkala was reportedly hired at CISA after being appointed to CISA he failed the counterintelligence polygraphwhich the Department of Homeland Security later determined was “unsanctioned” and subsequently suspended six career employees from access to classified information.