OpenAI recently disclosed that a bug exposed some ChatGPT users’ confidential details such as personal information and credit card data to other users of the service.
The issue was discovered earlier on Monday, when a ‘small proportion’ of users this week noticed chat names in their own discussion logs that were not their own. The problem is much more severe than this.
What did the bug do?
‘It was possible for some users to see another current user’s first and last name, email address, payment address, the last four numbers of a credit card number, and credit card expiry date,’ said a statement released by OpenAI.
According to the statement, 1.2 per cent of ChatGPT Plus subscribers were accidentally given access to the classified information. The San Francisco-based business has approximately 100 million customers, but how many of them pay for the service is unknown.
The news surfaced online when one Twitter user advised others to ‘be cautious’ of the chatbot as it had shown him other people’s discussion subjects. A picture of their inventory revealed titles such as ‘Girl Chases Butterflies,’ ‘Books on Human Behavior,’ and ‘Boy Survives Solo Adventure,’ but it was unclear which were not his.
“Be cautious if you use ChatGPT,’ they warned. There is a chance that your conversations will be shared with other people! I was shown another user’s conversation logs today. I couldn’t see the details, but I could see the titles of their recent conversations.”
Fixing the issue
The leak overshadowed OpenAI’s huge upgrade to ChatGPT, which now enables it to connect to the internet and provide users with real-time data.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed on Wednesday that the company was dealing with a “significant issue” that jeopardised the anonymity of its platform’s talks. The flaw, which has since been fixed, was found in the open-source Redis client library, called redis-py.
‘We believe the number of people whose data was truly disclosed to someone else is exceedingly low,’ said Open AI in a statement.
ChatGPT’s plug-ins
While the company works to ensure the security of its customers’ data, it is also assisting in the enhancement of its ChatGPT experience.
OpenAI released plugins that allow the chabot to connect to the internet and third-party websites, displaying sports results, stock prices, meal bookings, and other information. Expedia, FiscalNote, Instacart, KAYAK, Klarna, Milo, OpenTable, Shopify, Slack, Speak, Wolfram, and Zapier developed the first ChatGPT extensions.
Microsoft’s Bing API also has a new plugin that allows ChatGPT to explore the internet for current information. According to industry specialists who appraised the upgrade, ChatGPT will render “thousands of websites completely obsolete.”
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