PrivacyMedium
OpenAI's ChatGPT Mac App Stored User Data in Unencrypted Text Files
- Occurred
- Jul 1, 2024
- Published
- Jul 3, 2024
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
OpenAI's ChatGPT macOS app stored user conversations in plain text. If accessed by a malicious actor, these conversations could have been easily read. The critical security flaw was demonstrated by a third party and ultimately resolved after OpenAI released an update to encrypt the stored data.
Developers
- OpenAI
Deployers
- OpenAI
Harmed parties
- ChatGPT
Classification
Category confidence: 95%
Severity confidence: 90%
Rationale: Unencrypted storage of user conversations constitutes a privacy breach and data security failure.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8