Meta AI was leaking chatbot prompts and answers to unauthorized users

(Image credit: Chesnot / Getty Images)

A vulnerability discovered last year by a cybersecurity expert found that Meta AI has been letting chatbot users access the private prompts and AI-generated responses of other users through a flaw.

As reported by Cybernews, Meta has since fixed the bug, however, for an undetermined amount of time users had unauthorized access to prompts and answers of any other user as a result of the leak.

The vulnerability, which according to TechCrunch, was first disclosed to Meta on December 26, 2024 by cybersecurity expert and founder of AppSecure Sandeep Hodkasia, was corrected with a fix by Meta on January 24, 2025. Hodkasia was researching the way Meta AI lets logged in users modify their own prompts to regenerate texts and images; when a user edits their AI prompt, Meta’s servers assign a unique number to it and the AI-generated response.

Hodkasia analyzed his browser’s network traffic while editing an AI prompt, and found he could modify this number to cause the servers to return a prompt and response from another user. This means the servers were not checking that the user requesting the prompt and its response were authorized to view it.

Meta corrected the flaw and paid a $10,000 bug bounty to Hodkasia, a spokesperson for the company acknowledged the issue but stated the company had no evidence that the flaw had been exploited in the wild. This vulnerability follows one last month where Meta AI conversations were made public in the app, unintentionally exposing users' queries, highlighting how easy it is for AI chat interactions to cross security lines.

As more and more companies begin using chatbots, they should be regularly ensuring that these chats remain private and confidential by checking them for potential security flaws – particularly if the chat history could contain sensitive information.

More from Tom's Guide

Any Contract Length

12 Months Contracts

Showing 4 of 4 deals

Filters☰

McAfee+ Premium - Unlimited Devices

$49.99

View

McAfee+ Premium - Unlimited Devices

$49.99

View

TOPICS

Amber Bouman is the senior security editor at Tom's Guide where she writes about antivirus software, home security, identity theft and more. She has long had an interest in personal security, both online and off, and also has an appreciation for martial arts and edged weapons. With over two decades of experience working in tech journalism, Amber has written for a number of publications including PC World, Maximum PC, Tech Hive, and Engadget covering everything from smartphones to smart breast pumps.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.