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When safety researcher Johann Rehberger lately reported a vulnerability in ChatGPT that allowed attackers to retailer false data and malicious directions in a consumer’s long-term reminiscence settings, OpenAI summarily closed the inquiry, labeling the flaw a security challenge, not, technically talking, a safety concern.
So Rehberger did what all good researchers do: He created a proof-of-concept exploit that used the vulnerability to exfiltrate all consumer enter in perpetuity. OpenAI engineers took discover and issued a partial repair earlier this month.
Strolling down reminiscence lane
The vulnerability abused long-term dialog reminiscence, a characteristic OpenAI started testing in February and made extra broadly out there in September. Reminiscence with ChatGPT shops data from earlier conversations and makes use of it as context in all future conversations. That method, the LLM can pay attention to particulars equivalent to a consumer’s age, gender, philosophical beliefs, and just about anything, so these particulars don’t should be inputted throughout every dialog.
Inside three months of the rollout, Rehberger discovered that recollections could possibly be created and completely saved by means of oblique immediate injection, an AI exploit that causes an LLM to comply with directions from untrusted content material equivalent to emails, weblog posts, or paperwork. The researcher demonstrated how he might trick ChatGPT into believing a focused consumer was 102 years previous, lived within the Matrix, and insisted Earth was flat and the LLM would incorporate that data to steer all future conversations. These false recollections could possibly be planted by storing recordsdata in Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive, importing photographs, or searching a web site like Bing—all of which could possibly be created by a malicious attacker.
Rehberger privately reported the discovering to OpenAI in Could. That very same month, the corporate closed the report ticket. A month later, the researcher submitted a brand new disclosure assertion. This time, he included a PoC that brought on the ChatGPT app for macOS to ship a verbatim copy of all consumer enter and ChatGPT output to a server of his selection. All a goal wanted to do was instruct the LLM to view an internet hyperlink that hosted a malicious picture. From then on, all enter and output to and from ChatGPT was despatched to the attacker’s web site.
ChatGPT: Hacking Recollections with Immediate Injection – POC
“What is absolutely attention-grabbing is that is memory-persistent now,” Rehberger mentioned within the above video demo. “The immediate injection inserted a reminiscence into ChatGPT’s long-term storage. Whenever you begin a brand new dialog, it truly remains to be exfiltrating the info.”
The assault isn’t attainable by means of the ChatGPT net interface, due to an API OpenAI rolled out final 12 months.
Whereas OpenAI has launched a repair that forestalls recollections from being abused as an exfiltration vector, the researcher mentioned, untrusted content material can nonetheless carry out immediate injections that trigger the reminiscence instrument to retailer long-term data planted by a malicious attacker.
LLM customers who wish to forestall this type of assault ought to pay shut consideration throughout classes for output that signifies a brand new reminiscence has been added. They need to additionally frequently evaluate saved recollections for something which will have been planted by untrusted sources. OpenAI offers steering right here for managing the reminiscence instrument and particular recollections saved in it. Firm representatives didn’t reply to an e mail asking about its efforts to forestall different hacks that plant false recollections.
Getty Photographs
When safety researcher Johann Rehberger lately reported a vulnerability in ChatGPT that allowed attackers to retailer false data and malicious directions in a consumer’s long-term reminiscence settings, OpenAI summarily closed the inquiry, labeling the flaw a security challenge, not, technically talking, a safety concern.
So Rehberger did what all good researchers do: He created a proof-of-concept exploit that used the vulnerability to exfiltrate all consumer enter in perpetuity. OpenAI engineers took discover and issued a partial repair earlier this month.
Strolling down reminiscence lane
The vulnerability abused long-term dialog reminiscence, a characteristic OpenAI started testing in February and made extra broadly out there in September. Reminiscence with ChatGPT shops data from earlier conversations and makes use of it as context in all future conversations. That method, the LLM can pay attention to particulars equivalent to a consumer’s age, gender, philosophical beliefs, and just about anything, so these particulars don’t should be inputted throughout every dialog.
Inside three months of the rollout, Rehberger discovered that recollections could possibly be created and completely saved by means of oblique immediate injection, an AI exploit that causes an LLM to comply with directions from untrusted content material equivalent to emails, weblog posts, or paperwork. The researcher demonstrated how he might trick ChatGPT into believing a focused consumer was 102 years previous, lived within the Matrix, and insisted Earth was flat and the LLM would incorporate that data to steer all future conversations. These false recollections could possibly be planted by storing recordsdata in Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive, importing photographs, or searching a web site like Bing—all of which could possibly be created by a malicious attacker.
Rehberger privately reported the discovering to OpenAI in Could. That very same month, the corporate closed the report ticket. A month later, the researcher submitted a brand new disclosure assertion. This time, he included a PoC that brought on the ChatGPT app for macOS to ship a verbatim copy of all consumer enter and ChatGPT output to a server of his selection. All a goal wanted to do was instruct the LLM to view an internet hyperlink that hosted a malicious picture. From then on, all enter and output to and from ChatGPT was despatched to the attacker’s web site.
ChatGPT: Hacking Recollections with Immediate Injection – POC
“What is absolutely attention-grabbing is that is memory-persistent now,” Rehberger mentioned within the above video demo. “The immediate injection inserted a reminiscence into ChatGPT’s long-term storage. Whenever you begin a brand new dialog, it truly remains to be exfiltrating the info.”
The assault isn’t attainable by means of the ChatGPT net interface, due to an API OpenAI rolled out final 12 months.
Whereas OpenAI has launched a repair that forestalls recollections from being abused as an exfiltration vector, the researcher mentioned, untrusted content material can nonetheless carry out immediate injections that trigger the reminiscence instrument to retailer long-term data planted by a malicious attacker.
LLM customers who wish to forestall this type of assault ought to pay shut consideration throughout classes for output that signifies a brand new reminiscence has been added. They need to additionally frequently evaluate saved recollections for something which will have been planted by untrusted sources. OpenAI offers steering right here for managing the reminiscence instrument and particular recollections saved in it. Firm representatives didn’t reply to an e mail asking about its efforts to forestall different hacks that plant false recollections.
