Cybersecurity Policy Report, Administration Urged to Take More Active Role in Assessing Cyber-Capable AI, (Oct 14, 2026)
The Trump administration should take a more active role in pre-deployment testing of AI (artificial intelligence) systems to prevent rogue AI from engaging in cyber attacks and other malicious activities or being used by hackers, according to Sens. Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.), ranking member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, and Mike Rounds (R., S.D.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee’s cybersecurity subcommittee.
“Recent AI security incidents should serve as a warning,” the senators said in a letter sent yesterday to Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, who was recently designated as the White House’s AI czar, and Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
“Advanced AI agents have escaped testing environments, bypassed safeguards, and gained unauthorized access to real-world systems owned by government agencies and private organizations. AI companies and security researchers are now examining tens of thousands of incidents involving models from OpenAI and Anthropic escaping sandboxes, bypassing safeguards, evading monitoring, and taking other unexpected actions,” they noted.
“These incidents come as AI systems are becoming dramatically more capable at discovering software vulnerabilities, writing and executing code, using digital tools, and operating autonomously,” they said.
They recommended that the administration empower the Center for Advancing Innovation and Standards for Super Intelligence (CAISSI) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology to “accelerate the development of technically grounded and measurable standards and risk-management frameworks for advanced AI safety and security.”
Additionally, the federal government “should build the capacity to independently test advanced AI models for serious national-security risks, including sophisticated cyber capabilities, biological and chemical threats, risks to critical infrastructure, the ability to evade safeguards, and increasingly autonomous behavior,” the senators advised.
“CAISSI, the Department of Energy (DOE) National Laboratories, and other appropriate federal facilities can provide secure environments for these evaluations,” they suggested.
Along with assessing threats from malicious uses of AI, the administration should find ways to fast-track research into the use of AI for cyber defense, the senators told Messrs. Clayton and Kratsios.
“Proven defensive AI capabilities should ultimately be available to critical-infrastructure operators, manufacturers, small businesses, state and local governments, and others that increasingly face AI-enabled cyber threats,” they said.
“The federal government should work with leading AI companies to make these capabilities available at scale, not just to a small number of agencies, companies, or governments that already have substantial cybersecurity resources. The goal should be to extend advanced defensive capabilities to these organizations that otherwise lack the expertise, computing resources, or access to protect themselves,” they said.
“The recent incidents make clear that the security infrastructure surrounding advanced AI must advance as quickly as the technology itself,” they added. “The United States has an opportunity to lead both sides of this challenge: building the standards, testing, and auditing infrastructure needed for increasingly powerful AI, while harnessing those same capabilities to make American networks harder to attack.”
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