OpenAI uses AI to protect Ukraine's hospitals and power plants from Russian cyberattacks

OpenAI is making its AI-based cyberdefense system, called Daybreak, available free of charge to the government of Ukraine. The technology will primarily be used to protect civilian critical infrastructure, including hospitals, power plants, energy grids and state IT systems.

Under the agreement, Ukrainian cyberdefense specialists will also gain access to OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol model. The system can be used to quickly analyze large volumes of code, network data and security logs, identify vulnerabilities, uncover traces of attacks, and develop and test the necessary fixes.

Daybreak is not a single installable antivirus program or an automatically operating digital firewall, but a system of AI-based cyberdefense tools and controlled workflows. It can map an organization's digital infrastructure, search for vulnerable points, verify whether a discovered vulnerability is actually exploitable, and then draft a proposal for fixing the flaw. More important decisions and changes still take place under human oversight. The cooperation is being carried out through Ukraine's Ministry of Digital Transformation, so cyberdefense teams from several government bodies will have access to the service. The goal of the program is for specialists to find and fix security flaws in critical systems before attackers can exploit them. According to data from Ukraine's national incident response center, CERT-UA, nearly six thousand cyberattacks or more serious security incidents were recorded in the country in 2025. Russian operations regularly target energy infrastructure, telecommunications networks, state institution systems and healthcare providers.

George Osborne, the former British chancellor of the exchequer who now heads OpenAI's country programs, said that protecting civilian infrastructure today means defending against both physical and digital attacks at the same time. The aim of the cooperation is to ensure that the Ukrainian population continues to have access to healthcare, energy and administrative services despite ongoing Russian attacks. Rafe Pilling, director of threat intelligence at the cybersecurity firm Sophos, noted that Russian cyber operations have been an integral part of the Kremlin's aggression against Ukraine since 2014. In his view, Daybreak could significantly boost the performance of Ukrainian cyberdefense specialists, who have considerable experience but are working under enormous strain due to the sheer volume of attacks.

The use of Daybreak does not mean that OpenAI is taking over Ukraine's cyberdefense. The system primarily speeds up tasks that security experts previously had to perform manually: scanning code, analyzing suspicious activity, checking for security gaps and testing fixes. In early September, OpenAI announced it would provide one billion dollars' worth of subsidized access to Daybreak's services for organizations protecting critical infrastructure. The program also includes training, technical support and cybersecurity products developed by more than thirty-five partners. The system is already being used by several thousand specialists at around two thousand approved organizations, including cybersecurity firms, defense agencies and law enforcement institutions.

At the same time, the cybersecurity capabilities of advanced AI models have a dual-use nature. The same technology that can find and fix a vulnerability in a program can, without proper controls, also help attackers discover and exploit security gaps. That is why OpenAI only grants access to Daybreak's more advanced capabilities to vetted organizations and specialists. The danger is not merely theoretical: according to a September report by Anthropic, Russian developers used artificial intelligence to help develop software for kamikaze drones aimed at Ukraine, as well as programs that automatically modified malicious code whenever it was detected by security systems. The company also said that artificial intelligence was used in intrusion attempts against Ukrainian government, military and diplomatic networks.

Ugar