Ukraine Will Receive Free AI from OpenAI for Cybersecurity

OpenAI will provide verified Ukrainian teams with free access to the Daybreak program, which they will use to protect civilian and critical infrastructure. AI tools will enable specialists to detect and verify software vulnerabilities, analyze code and suspicious activity, prioritize cyber threats, create and test fixes, and respond more quickly to cyber incidents.

In addition, the program provides training and technical support for vetted Ukrainian teams.

What Ukraine Will Receive

As part of the collaboration with Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, vetted teams will gain access to Daybreak, as well as training and technical support.

OpenAI describes Daybreak as a suite of cybersecurity tools that helps automate some of the work performed by specialists. The system can be used to inventory digital systems, detect and verify vulnerabilities, analyze source code, investigate threats, and respond to cyber incidents.

AI also helps identify which vulnerabilities are the most dangerous, develop and test fixes, and verify that the problem has indeed been resolved. Access to Daybreak is granted to vetted specialists for authorized work on system protection.

How Daybreak Will Work

Daybreak provides several levels of cybersecurity—from identifying a problem to resolving it and verifying the result. OpenAI describes this process as a continuous cycle: inventory, detection, verification, prioritization, remediation, and confirmation.

For security professionals, this means the ability to process large volumes of information more quickly and reduce the time between vulnerability detection and remediation.

OpenAI also divides access to Daybreak into two tiers. Daybreak Blue is designed for most security tasks, including vulnerability scanning, code review, malware analysis, incident response, and patch verification. Daybreak Red is intended for more specialized, authorized security testing and vulnerability research.

Ukraine records thousands of cyberattacks every year

According to Dmytro Kushneruk, Ukraine’s Consul General in San Francisco, the Ukrainian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-UA) records about 6,000 cyberattacks per year—that is, approximately 15 attacks per day.

Kushneruk noted that artificial intelligence can help Ukrainian specialists analyze event logs more quickly, review code, conduct system inventories, and determine which vulnerabilities require priority attention.

He also cited examples of attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, including energy systems, the railway, and the mobile operator Kyivstar. According to him, for Ukraine, cyber resilience means the ability to continue operations even when individual digital systems are under attack.

In particular, Ukraine uses a decentralized architecture for its digital systems, distributed and encrypted registries, and national roaming. The latter allows users to switch to another mobile operator if one of them comes under attack.

OpenAI notes that its collaboration with Ukraine is part of the global Daybreak program. In September, the company announced $1 billion in subsidized access to Daybreak, as well as training, technical support, and partnerships for organizations that protect critical services and digital infrastructure.

This was reported with references to the BBC and OpenAI.

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