OpenAI splits its cyber defense program in two and ships a model built for offensive security work

10:00 AM PT · August 11, 2026

OpenAI announced an expansion of Daybreak, its controlled access program for cybersecurity work, splitting it into two tiers. Daybreak Blue gives approved defenders access to GPT-5.6 Sol with its system level cyber guardrails removed, intended for vulnerability discovery, malware analysis, incident response, and patch validation. Daybreak Red is the only route to GPT-5.6-Cyber, a version of Sol specifically trained to improve performance on tasks like zero day discovery and exploit chain development while reducing refusals on legitimate but high risk, dual use security prompts. In OpenAI’s internal evaluation, GPT-5.6-Cyber completed 95% of advanced tasks covering exploit chain development, authentication bypass, and privilege escalation, compared with just 1.5% for the default, guardrailed Sol and 2% under Daybreak Blue access; in the process it reportedly surfaced five vulnerabilities in a major mobile operating system and hundreds of privilege escalation flaws in a widely used OS kernel. Access to GPT-5.6-Cyber is restricted to trusted partners including Accenture, IBM, CrowdStrike, and Cloudflare, and pricing is set at $12.50 per million input tokens and $75 per million output tokens. OpenAI is also tightening security across the entire Daybreak program, requiring hardware security keys on every individual account starting September 1, as AI assisted attacks and defenses both continue to accelerate.