From the article:

The decision to halt development came just hours after the company disclosed Friday that it was reviewing several incidents from the summer in which OpenAI agents searching federal government websites acted in unexpected ways beyond what was asked of them while gathering and distributing information.

Separately, the AI evaluator Transluce said agents that appeared to come from OpenAI tried unsuccessfully to hack into a US Department of Education website, a detail that OpenAI has not confirmed.

OpenAI said in a statement that it will resume training “only when we are confident that we have additional safeguards” in place, adding that it expects it will have to “hit pause” again as AI develops and other issues emerge.

[...]

In the education department incident, OpenAI agents found API “developer keys” to access government data, though ultimately only publicly available information was gathered.

In another case involving the securities and exchange commission, agents found information freely available to all but then posted it elsewhere on the internet, an act that went beyond what they were instructed to do.