OpenAI opens its Daybreak cyber defence programme to Ukraine

“Ukraine is already on the front line, and its defenders need support now. We want to put more capable tools in their hands to help them find and fix vulnerabilities and protect the critical networks people depend on,” said Sasha Baker, head of national security policy at OpenAI.

OpenAI will give the Government of Ukraine access to its Daybreak programme , the company announced on Wednesday . The aim is to defend civilian infrastructure against cyber attacks. It is working with Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation. Ukrainian teams will get tools to find software vulnerabilities and to develop and test fixes more quickly.

Baker made the announcement with Dmytro Kushneruk, Ukraine’s Consul General in San Francisco. They spoke on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly .

Daybreak gives cyber defenders access to advanced AI for authorised security work, according to OpenAI. That covers reviewing older software, investigating suspicious activity, validating vulnerabilities and testing fixes.

The BBC reported that OpenAI will share Daybreak for free. The deal also includes access to its GPT-5.6 Sol model.

OpenAI cited figures from CERT-UA, Ukraine’s national cyber incident response team, which handled nearly 6,000 incidents in 2025. They include attacks on hospital systems, the energy sector and telecommunications.

“Protecting civilian infrastructure means defending it against both physical and digital attacks, so people can continue to live, work and access essential services,” said George Osborne, head of OpenAI for Countries.

OpenAI said defenders in France, Germany, Poland and other European countries already use its cyber models . The EU’s cyber agency, ENISA, used them to identify vulnerabilities in software used across EU institutions. All of them have since been fixed, the company said.

In Poland, the national cyber agency CERT Polska used OpenAI models to help find six flaws in router software. That software comes from a third party. The vendor has released fixes, which CERT Polska confirms prevent the attacks it observed, OpenAI said.

OpenAI has pitched Daybreak to other operators of essential services too. Sam Altman presented it to US utilities earlier this month.

Rafe Pilling is senior director of threat intelligence at Sophos. He told the BBC that Russian cyber operations had been “a key component” of the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine since 2014. He called any initiative that strengthens Ukraine’s cyber defence “a welcome development”.

Jamie MacColl, of the Royal United Services Institute, told the BBC that Western tech firms help Ukraine partly for altruistic reasons. He said they also gain very valuable data and intelligence from an active conflict. MacColl expected Daybreak to be useful, given the volume of Russian attacks. But he noted that Ukraine already has AI tools from OpenAI’s rivals, including Google.