OpenAI automated vulnerability chain discovery finds 1,724 Linux kernel vulnerabilities

OpenAI's automated vulnerability research pipeline identified a total of 2,308 Linux kernel vulnerability candidates, confirmed 1,724 vulnerabilities through dynamic reproduction, and generated 948 local privilege escalation exploit programs; such vulnerabilities can allow unprivileged users to obtain the highest root privileges. The pipeline is divided into five stages: vulnerability discovery, dynamic verification, exploitability assessment, patch generation, and manual review. The full-process cost of the second scan was approximately $1.21 million in API credits, producing 948 independent local privilege escalation vulnerabilities. Estimated according to bug bounty standards, the value range of these 948 exploit programs is $18.9 million to $66.3 million, 16 to 55 times the pipeline cost. The agent used 10 entirely new vulnerability exploitation techniques, which have been verified by third-party kernel vulnerability experts as new methods. OpenAI is submitting vulnerability information and corresponding patches to Linux kernel maintainers.