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When safety researcher Johann Rehberger not too long ago reported a vulnerability in ChatGPT that allowed attackers to retailer false info and malicious directions in a consumer’s long-term reminiscence settings, OpenAI summarily closed the inquiry, labeling the flaw a security concern, 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 function OpenAI started testing in February and made extra broadly accessible in September. Reminiscence with ChatGPT shops info from earlier conversations and makes use of it as context in all future conversations. That approach, the LLM can pay attention to particulars resembling a consumer’s age, gender, philosophical beliefs, and just about anything, so these particulars don’t need to be inputted throughout every dialog.
Inside three months of the rollout, Rehberger discovered that recollections could possibly be created and completely saved by way of oblique immediate injection, an AI exploit that causes an LLM to comply with directions from untrusted content material resembling emails, weblog posts, or paperwork. The researcher demonstrated how he may 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 info 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 website like Bing—all of which could possibly be created by a malicious attacker.
Rehberger privately reported the discovering to OpenAI in Might. 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 fascinating is that is memory-persistent now,” Rehberger stated within the above video demo. “The immediate injection inserted a reminiscence into ChatGPT’s long-term storage. If you begin a brand new dialog, it really continues to be exfiltrating the info.”
The assault isn’t potential by way of the ChatGPT net interface, because of 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 stated, untrusted content material can nonetheless carry out immediate injections that trigger the reminiscence software to retailer long-term info planted by a malicious attacker.
LLM customers who wish to stop this type of assault ought to pay shut consideration throughout periods for output that signifies a brand new reminiscence has been added. They need to additionally frequently assessment saved recollections for something that will have been planted by untrusted sources. OpenAI supplies steering right here for managing the reminiscence software and particular recollections saved in it. Firm representatives didn’t reply to an electronic mail asking about its efforts to forestall different hacks that plant false recollections.
