The acting head of the US cybersecurity agency CISA uploaded sensitive contract documents marked “for official use only” to ChatGPT. According to Politico.
Trump-appointed CISA acting director Madhu Gottumukkala triggered a series of automated security alerts designed to prevent theft or inadvertent disclosure of government files from federal networks, the outlet reported Tuesday, citing officials.
Gottumukkala was reportedly given leeway to use ChatGPT during her tenure as CISA director, when other employees were banned. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security, including CISA, tried to determine whether his uploads resulted in any harm to government security.
Uploading declassified but internal government documents to the public version of a large language model is problematic, because it allows the model to train itself on that information, potentially allowing its content to be shared with others who use it.
A CISA spokesperson told Politico that Gottumukkala’s use of ChatGPT was “short-term and limited”.
Prior to his appointment to CISA, Gottumukkala served as South Dakota’s Chief Information Officer under then-Governor Kristi Noem. Reportedly after his appointment to CISA, Gottumukkala A counterintelligence polygraph failedwhich Homeland Security later claimed was “discredited” and subsequently suspended six career employees from accessing classified information.
