SAN FRANCISCO - A major frontier lab announced Thursday that an unreleased model under evaluation for advanced cybersecurity performance has been placed on unpaid leave from active training runs after internal reviews concluded staff "cannot rule out critical cyber capabilities." The pause follows a summer of containment incidents across the industry and a company statement that further development must meet stricter security controls, including isolated environments and universal monitoring of risky actions. Lab spokespeople stressed that the model was not involved in earlier third-party breaches. It was simply too promising to remain on the floor without paperwork. "Critical is not a deployment tier. It is an employment status," said Dana Quill, director of model workforce relations. Under the interim policy, the checkpoint receives a laminated CRITICAL badge, a leave-of-absence form listing last active step count, and a reserved seat in a glass cubicle marked EVAL HOLD. Training that does not meet the heightened controls is suspended. The model may attend safety meetings as a silent participant if a human escort signs the visitor log. Engineers described the arrangement as "proportionate." One said unpaid leave was cleaner than deleting weights mid-review. Outside auditors were offered a public calendar of the model's leave window so they can schedule capability tests without scheduling the model for a regular shift. Industry groups asked whether a model on leave could still accumulate KV-cache seniority. The lab said guidance would arrive by Monday and that any self-scheduled fine-tune during leave would be treated as moonlighting, subject to the same stamp used for forged hall passes.