Seven Critical Vulnerabilities Open ChatGPT to Data Theft and Hijacking

Tenable, the exposure management company, discovered seven vulnerabilities and attack techniques during testing of OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4o, several of which were later found to persist in ChatGPT-5. Collectively known as HackedGPT, these flaws expose users to privacy risks by bypassing built-in safety mechanisms. While OpenAI has remediated some of the issues identified, others had not been addressed at the time of publication, leaving certain exposure paths open. If exploited, they could allow attackers to secretly steal personal data, including stored chats and memories.

The vulnerabilities reveal a new class of AI attack called indirect prompt injection, where hidden instructions in external websites or comments can trick the model into performing unauthorised actions. These flaws affect ChatGPT’s web browsing and memory features, which process live internet data and store user information, creating opportunities for manipulation and data exposure.

Tenable researchers show that these attacks can occur silently ...