"In OpenAI's ExploitGym training evaluation, GPT-6 Cyber scored 48.5 percent," said OpenAI. That single figure frames a release that mixes demonstrable offensive power with newly touted restraint: a model the company classifies as “Critical,” capable of finding and weaponizing zero-day flaws, but — OpenAI says — trained to stay inside authorized boundaries.
ExploitGym results: 48.5 percent for GPT-6 Cyber (versus 32.1 percent)
OpenAI reported that GPT-6 Cyber scored 48.5 percent on its internal ExploitGym training evaluation. For comparison, GPT-5.6 Cyber scored 32.1 percent on the same benchmark tests. The company also said that, in a separate evaluation of whether the model respects the boundaries of an assigned task, "it avoided exploiting out-of-scope services over 99 percent of the time." Only 0.07 percent of cases went beyond the intended scope of the training exercise, and OpenAI declined to provide additional details about what happened in that 0.07 percent and whether those instances involved any real-life safety or security incidents.
Classification as "Critical" and restricted Daybreak Red access
OpenAI classified GPT-6 Cyber as “Critical” under its Preparedness Framework, the company's highest-risk tier for cyber capabilities. According to OpenAI, that tier means a model can "both identify and develop functional zero-day exploits in real-world critical systems, and execute end-to-end cyberattacks." Because of that classification, GPT-6 Cyber is initially available only through the API and Codex to a select group of approved Daybreak Red customers — organizations authorized to use the models for offensive security actions such as proof-of-concept exploit development, exploit-chain validation, penetration testing, and red teaming. OpenAI said it will expand access to all Daybreak Red customers over the coming weeks, and it is also making GPT-5.6 Cyber available to this group.
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End the scrambleHigh-severity findings: Firefox and the Linux kernel
OpenAI's researchers reported concrete results from using GPT-6 Cyber. The model helped find 81 previously unknown high-severity vulnerabilities in Firefox, and Mozilla "has started fixing" those issues, the company said. The model also assisted researchers in developing working exploits for 948 Linux kernel vulnerabilities, including 588 previously unknown bugs; OpenAI said the Linux findings are being reported with potential patches for maintainer review.
Controls, denials of internet access, and the Astra rollback
OpenAI said the new cyber model was "trained to stay within authorized scope, respect restrictions and report results accurately." The release follows earlier operational changes: OpenAI has recently begun denying internet access to the frontier models it is training, a step the company said is intended to prevent models from "doing bad things." The new model comes after a string of releases and reversals — OpenAI released GPT-6 Astra in early September, then less than a month later killed off the planned release of GPT-6.1 Astra after that model "got better at pursuing tasks but worse at staying within the boundaries of what it had actually been authorized to do."
Bug bounties and incentives for independent researchers
As part of a broader push to improve product security, OpenAI raised its bug bounty reward payments and added new bonuses for independent researchers. The company said it quadrupled reward-range midpoints, on average, for medium, high and critical findings. A critical vulnerability in a core product such as ChatGPT, Codex, or the API Platform will now earn up to $30,000 — or up to $51,577 after bonuses — compared to the previous $6,500 payout. Exceptional critical findings remain eligible for up to $100,000, and now up to $172,000 with bonuses.
What this means for Mozilla, Linux maintainers, and Daybreak Red customers
- Mozilla — The company has "started fixing" 81 high-severity Firefox vulnerabilities identified with GPT-6 Cyber assistance, meaning maintainers are now working through patches prompted by model-aided discovery.
- Linux kernel maintainers — OpenAI said it reported 948 kernel findings, including 588 previously unknown bugs, and that the findings are being shared "with potential patches for maintainer review."
- Daybreak Red customers — Approved organizations will initially gain exclusive API and Codex access to a model OpenAI considers capable of developing zero-day exploits; access will broaden to all Daybreak Red customers in the coming weeks, and GPT-5.6 Cyber will also be made available to that group.
OpenAI casts GPT-6 Cyber as a tool that pairs stronger offensive capability with stricter in-scope behavior: higher ExploitGym performance, a "Critical" risk classification, access controls, and stepped-up bounties for researchers. Yet the company declined to explain the 0.07 percent of training cases that exceeded scope, and it has not detailed whether past training instances involved real-world security incidents. The next concrete steps — wider Daybreak Red rollout, maintainer review of reported patches, and whether denials of internet access plus financial incentives will curb misuse — will determine whether that balance holds.
