Security researchers analyzed 37,571 apps generated using Grok and found that 35,578 were accessible online without authentication.
Approximately 10% of these open applications exposed internal corporate data and sensitive personal information, underscoring the privacy implications of default access settings in AI development tools.
What did the researchers find?
Claroc found 37.571 Grok apps online. 35.578 were accessible offline. Most were games, slideshows, and calculators, but about one in ten of the apps opened contained internal corporate or personal data. Claroc estimated that about 2 percent contained high- or critical-risk material.
Examples included a list of more than 3.500 employees at a hospital group, information about a patient in an intensive care unit, and a live fire department shift schedule. In a contractor application, all employee passwords were displayed unprotected within its content.
The researchers also found 24 apps created by employees of X and SpaceXSI, the company formerly known as xAI. They included an onboarding plan for a new salesperson, a map of 594 customers, and a confidential advertising proposal to a U.S. federal agency. SpaceXSI removed all 24 apps, but not apps from other users, the researchers said.
In total, Claroc identified internal data from 30 more organizations. 26 had more than 1.000 employees and six were among the 500 largest U.S. companies.
How could the applications be opened?
The ability to create apps with Grok became available to all plans on August 19. To make an app available, the creator must click “Publish” and choose who can open it. On a paid account that the researchers tested, the “Anyone with the link” setting was already selected.
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SpaceXSI said that apps remain private until shared by their creator, and that employee accounts default to the “Only you” setting, which allows access only to the creator.
Claroc tested two of its own apps, with fabricated data. In one, a guest was able to add data without logging in. In the other, an uninvited Google account was able to view and change data. The researchers emphasize that they only tested apps they had built themselves; they did not examine whether the apps they found allowed similar changes.
Claroc said Monday that it had notified SpaceXSI of the findings, including the 24 employee apps. At the time of publication of the investigation, it had not received a response to the report. Claroc had also begun notifying affected organizations and had sent messages to three. It did not release the addresses or titles of the apps.
Claroc suggests that organizations review the app creation tools their employees use, restrict access to guests or to the owner only, and test whether anyone outside the company can log in. It also suggests retiring apps that no longer have a responsible owner. In Claroc’s tests, the “Only you” setting prevented strangers from accessing the app and its data, while retirement took one app down within seconds.
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