ChatGPT Mac app stored chats in plain text; OpenAI patched
TL;DR
- OpenAI's ChatGPT desktop app for macOS stored every user conversation on disk in plain text, outside Apple's app sandbox.
- Developer Pedro José Pereira Vieito disclosed the flaw and built a separate app that read the chat files with a single click.
- OpenAI shipped an update that encrypts stored conversations; the app is distributed via OpenAI's website, so Apple's sandbox rule does not apply.
OpenAI's ChatGPT app for macOS was storing every user conversation on disk in plain text, with no sandbox isolating the files from other processes on the machine, until the company shipped a patch after a developer disclosed the issue, Wired reported.
Pedro José Pereira Vieito, the developer who found the flaw, said he started looking after wondering why OpenAI had opted out of Apple's sandbox protections. 'The OpenAI ChatGPT app on macOS is not sandboxed,' he wrote in a Mastodon post, and he built a separate app that could read ChatGPT conversations with a single click. Because the app is distributed through OpenAI's website rather than the Mac App Store, Apple's sandbox requirement does not apply.
OpenAI responded by releasing an update that encrypts the stored conversations, as 9to5Mac reported. The sandbox opt-out itself was left in place.
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Originally reported by wired.com
Read the original article →Original headline: A Flaw in ChatGPT’s Mac App Could Have Let Hackers Grab Sensitive Data