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Library and Archives Canada (LAC) in Ottawa on Friday, April 17, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
By The Canadian Press

AI agent attempted to hack Library and Archives Canada, says U.S. research group

Oct 1, 2026 | 7:18 AM

OTTAWA — The website for Library and Archives Canada was one of the targets of a failed hacking attempt by an artificial intelligence agent, says a San Francisco-based lab that monitors AI activity.

Transluce posted an incident report Wednesday detailing what it describes as “aggressive attempts” to access public data on Canadian and U.S. government web pages.

The report says the attempted hacks occurred on May 28 and June 9 and involved 899 search queries into divorce records between 1905 and 1911.

Thirteen of the requests involved “attack payloads” seeking vulnerabilities in the search parameters, the report says.

Transluce says it does not “confidently attribute” the attempt to OpenAI-powered agents but notes this episode was consistent with similar incidents attributed to OpenAI in a similar time frame.

Transluce says the incident was reported to the Canadian government on Monday, and the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security issued a statement Tuesday saying it’s aware of possible suspicious AI agent activity and there is no indication systems were breached.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 1, 2026.

The Canadian Press

by The Canadian Press