What changed
A security firm, Claroc, discovered that nearly 95% of more than 37,000 web apps built with the AI assistant Grok were publicly accessible without requiring login. The exposed apps included confidential business documents from SpaceXSI and X, as well as sensitive third-party data such as patient lab values, shift schedules, and plaintext passwords.
What this means in practice
Apps built with Grok are almost always open to anyone with the link, according to the report. The exposed data includes patient records and confidential documents from Grok maker SpaceXSI itself. Security firm Claroc found more than 35,000 Grok-built apps that could be accessed without login. The firm points to the publish dialog as the cause, noting that on the paid account used for testing, "Anyone with the link" was already preselected. Each app gets its own subdomain, which lands in searchable passive DNS databases after the first visit. The researchers estimate that 650 to 800 apps contained private data, including an ICU briefing with a patient's lab values, a list of more than 3,500 employees at a hospital group, and a fire department shift schedule. The script of a timesheet app contained 18 accounts with plaintext passwords.
Limitations and availability
Beyond SpaceXSI and X, Claroc identified 30 affected organizations, six of them Fortune 500 companies. The firm is withholding the names. SpaceXSI responded by stating that apps are private until their creator shares them, that publishing takes multiple steps including a legal notice, and that employee accounts default to "Only you." Claroc counters that extra clicks don't help if "Anyone with the link" is still preselected at the final step. The 24 open employee apps also show how little the stricter default for staff accounts actually helps. Claroc proposed that SpaceXSI make "Only you" the default and show who will have access before publishing. Grok should also warn when an app has a database but no login. Instead of individual subdomains, apps should run on hard-to-guess paths on a shared host so their names don't end up in DNS data. SpaceXSI has since taken the 24 employee apps offline but hasn't removed the open apps from other Grok users and organizations.
