The acting head of U.S. cybersecurity agency CISA uploaded sensitive contracting documents marked “for official use only” to ChatGPT, according to Politico.
The outlet, citing officials, reported Tuesday that CISA’s acting director, Madhu Gottumukkala, appointed by Trump, triggered multiple automated security warnings that are designed to prevent the theft or inadvertent disclosure of government files from federal networks.
Gottumukkala was reportedly granted an exception to use ChatGPT earlier in his tenure as CISA director at a time when other employees were prohibited. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security, which houses CISA, sought to determine if there was any harm to government security as a result of his uploads.
Uploading unclassified but internal government documents to a public version of a large language model is problematic, as it allows the model to train itself on that information, potentially allowing its contents 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 at CISA, Gottumukkala served as the chief information officer of South Dakota under then-governor Kristi Noem. Following his appointment to CISA, Gottumukkala reportedly failed a counterintelligence polygraph, which Homeland Security later claimed was “unsanctioned,” and subsequently suspended six career staff from accessing classified information.
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