Researchers say OpenAI revoked their access to limited cyber program

Several cybersecurity researchers say OpenAI suddenly revoked their access to the Trusted Access for Cyber (TAC) program, a limited-access initiative that offers vetted researchers fewer guardrails on the company's most advanced AI models for defensive security work.

Researchers reported the problem on OpenAI's official support forums and on X: when opening ChatGPT's Cyber page, a message said their identity could not be verified or that their account "is ineligible at this time."

TechCrunch spoke to five researchers who experienced the issue. One said OpenAI emailed that their access to Daybreak Blue, the latest vetted tier of TAC, was revoked "due to a technical issue affecting a limited number of users."

"This was an issue on our end, and not the user experience we want to deliver," read the message. OpenAI cited a "recent technical issue" in both channels and asked users to reapply and complete verification. On X, the company said a "limited set of users' access to Daybreak Blue is no longer active and they will need to re-verify to maintain their access."

Notably, all the researchers TechCrunch spoke to live outside the U.S. and Europe, suggesting the revocations may be limited to certain regions. Daybreak Blue, launched August 10, grants access to frontier general-purpose models including GPT-5.6 Sol, with safeguards tailored to authorized defensive security work.

TAC is similar to Anthropic's Cyber Verification Program (CVP): the idea is to give trusted defenders better models so they can report bugs and vulnerabilities faster, while keeping cybercriminals from using the models to develop exploits.

In recent months, both defensive and offensive security researchers have complained that guardrails imposed by Anthropic and OpenAI block legitimate work. After this revocation episode, OpenAI will need to clarify the scope of the issue and its fix to rebuild trust with the researcher community.