Trump’s acting cybersecurity chief uploaded sensitive government documents to ChatGPT

The acting head of the US cybersecurity agency CISA uploaded sensitive contractual documents marked “for official use only” to ChatGPT, according to Politico.

Acting CISA Director Madhu Gottumukkala, a Trump appointee, triggered several automated security warnings designed to prevent the theft or inadvertent disclosure of government files from federal networks, the outlet reported, citing officials, on Tuesday.

Gottumukkala was reportedly granted an exception to use ChatGPT earlier in his tenure as CISA director while other employees were banned. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security, which includes CISA, sought to determine whether there was any harm to government security as a result of his uploads.

Loading unclassified internal government documents into a public version of a large language model is problematic, because it allows the model to train itself on that information, potentially allowing its contents to be shared with others who use it.

A CISA spokesperson told Politico that Gottumukkala’s use of ChatGPT was “short-lived and limited.”

Prior to his appointment to CISA, Gottomukala served as South Dakota’s chief information officer under then-Governor Kristi Noem. After his appointment to CISA, Gottomukala reportedly failed to conduct a counterintelligence polygraph, which DHS later claimed was “unauthorized,” and then blocked six career employees from accessing classified information.