OpenAI eyes security firm purchase amid office bugging scandal

OpenAI is in talks to acquire Trail of Bits (ToB), a cybersecurity firm which counts top crypto projects among its clients, according to a Tuesday report by The Information.

The news comes in the wake of a major security incident at the AI giant’s offices, in which it discovered a “sophisticated recording device” in a conference room, planted by an engineer who’s since been arrested by the FBI.

ToB is one of the best known and well-respected auditors among crypto projects, with experience in nine blockchain ecosystems, and counting Arbitrum, Uniswap and Aave as clients.

We discovered a sophisticated recording device that was hidden inside one of our offices. We used our models to understand the device and where it had come from, identifying that a specific employee had planted it a few days earlier. We referred the matter to the FBI, and we’re…
— OpenAI Newsroom (@OpenAINewsroom) October 13, 2026

OpenAI and ToB previously collaborated on the “Patch the Planet” initiative, part of OpenAI’s wider Daybreak frontier model security program. In 2023, it also audited World (then Worldcoin), with which OpenAI shares a co-founder, Sam Altman.

Earlier this year, ToB produced a set of plug-ins for “security research, vulnerability detection, and audit workflows” via Claude Code, including smart contract vulnerability scanning.

Red teaming

The potential acquisition comes after a major reckoning for top AI companies and the dangers they present.

The discussion kicked off after a rogue swarm of OpenAI agents broke out of their sandbox and attacked the open-source AI platform HuggingFace in July.

While the increasing need for security expertise is clear, both within crypto and the wider AI industry, some find the potential for gatekeeping worrying.

Conversely, Yuga Labs’ 0xQuit called the move “extremely bullish” for crypto security, while another X user suspects OpenAI may be making a move into agentic crypto adoption.

A ToB audit is far from a rubber-stamp for safety, however.

DeFi projects audited by the firm have been exploited in the past, including Balancer and Bunni Finance, which lost $129 million and $8 million, respectively, last year.

Balancer has since decided to shut down.

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