Ukraine’s civilian cyber defenders get OpenAI Daybreak after about 6,000 incidents in 2025
- OpenAI gave Ukraine’s government access to Daybreak, its AI tool for finding and patching software flaws.
- CERT-UA, Ukraine’s national incident response team, handled about 6,000 cyber incidents in 2025.
- Dmytro Kushneruk and Sasha Baker announced the deal at the UN General Assembly on September 23.
OpenAI made Daybreak, its AI system for detecting and fixing software flaws, available to the Ukrainian government for free. The target is defending hospitals, power plants, and telecom networks from Russian cyberattacks.
The deal went public on September 23 at the UN General Assembly. Ukraine’s incident responders registered about 6,000 cyber incidents last year.
Kushneruk and Baker announce the deal at the UN General Assembly
The arrangement goes through Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation. It was announced on the sidelines of the UN gathering by Dmytro Kushneruk, Ukraine’s Consul General in San Francisco, and Sasha Baker, OpenAI’s head of national security policy.
Access to GPT-5.6 Sol is bundled with Daybreak. Ukrainian teams can use Daybreak to scan old code, investigate suspicious activity, confirm code flaws, and test patches before their release.
“Ukraine is already on the front line, and its defenders need support now,” Baker said. “We want to put more capable tools in their hands to help them find and fix vulnerabilities and protect the critical networks people depend on.”
The figure of 6,000 is from CERT-UA, the national incident response team of Ukraine. That is up 37% from 2024, with local authorities and government agencies taking the brunt.
The incidents were aimed at hospital systems, the energy sector, and telecommunications, OpenAI said.
“Protecting civilian infrastructure means defending it against both physical and digital attacks, so people can continue to live, work and access essential services,” stated George Osborne, head of OpenAI for Countries.
CERT Polska found six router flaws with the same models
The Ukrainian offer follows OpenAI’s September 3 announcement of a plan to provide $1 billion in subsidized access to Daybreak, with a promise to expand the program to partner countries within weeks.
That launch came with Astra, OpenAI’s first model designated “Critical” for cyber risk under its own safety framework. Daybreak’s vetted testers got it first.
Daybreak splits users into a defensive Blue tier and a closely watched Red tier for authorized vulnerability research. OpenAI set out this tiered division when it launched GPT-5.6-Cyber in August.
The ChatGPT maker says its cyber AI models are already being used by defense forces in France, Germany, and Poland.
The EU agency ENISA has used them to find vulnerabilities in software used by EU institutions, and they have all been fixed. CERT Polska exposed six vulnerabilities in third-party router software that the vendor has patched.
Sam Altman also pitched Daybreak to US utilities this month. Ukraine already uses AI tools from competitors of OpenAI, including Google.
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FAQs
What is Daybreak and what does it do?
Daybreak is OpenAI's AI program for finding software vulnerabilities and testing fixes, running on GPT-5.6 Sol.
How many cyberattacks did Ukraine face in 2025?
CERT-UA handled about 6,000 cyber incidents in 2025, a 37% increase from 2024.
Which other countries already use OpenAI's cyber models?
France, Germany and Poland already use OpenAI's cyber models, the company says.
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Randa Moses
Randa Moses is an editor and reporter at Cryptopolitan covering tech, AI, robotics, crypto, scams, and hacks. She has worked in the crypto space since 2017. She held roles at Forward Protocol, AmaZix, and Cryptosomniac. Randa holds a degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the University of Bradford.
