OpenAI said Tuesday that Astra, an unreleased model, has crossed the “critical” threshold for cybersecurity capability under its Preparedness Framework, the first model the company has ever put in that category. That means Astra, which many believe to be GPT-6 instead of an additional model, can find previously unknown security flaws and build working exploits across many hardened systems without a person guiding it step by step. “We now believe Astra meets the Critical cybersecurity capability threshold under our Preparedness Framework,” OpenAI wrote. “It is the first model we are designating at this level, and requires stronger safeguards during development and before release.” Under the framework, a model hits critical if it can independently develop functional zero-day exploits across many hardened real-world systems, or if it can plan and execute an entire cyberattack against a tough target starting from nothing more than a high-level goal.

Full report : The unreleased model can find zero-day vulnerabilities and chain them into working exploits without a human walking it through each step, and access to that capability is starting with a small group of testers.