March 20 ChatGPT outage: Right here’s what occurred

We took ChatGPT offline earlier this week on account of a bug in an open-source library which allowed some customers to see titles from one other energetic consumer’s chat historical past. It’s additionally potential that the primary message of a newly-created dialog was seen in another person’s chat historical past if each customers had been energetic across the identical time.

The bug is now patched. We had been in a position to restore each the ChatGPT service and, later, its chat historical past function, apart from a couple of hours of historical past. As promised, we’re publishing extra technical details of this drawback under.

Upon deeper investigation, we additionally found that the identical bug might have brought about the unintentional visibility of payment-related data of 1.2% of the ChatGPT Plus subscribers who had been energetic throughout a selected nine-hour window. Within the hours earlier than we took ChatGPT offline on Monday, it was potential for some customers to see one other energetic consumer’s first and final identify, electronic mail deal with, cost deal with, the final 4 digits (solely) of a bank card quantity, and bank card expiration date. Full bank card numbers weren’t uncovered at any time. 

We imagine the variety of customers whose information was really revealed to another person is extraordinarily low. To entry this data, a ChatGPT Plus subscriber would have wanted to do one of many following:

• Open a subscription affirmation electronic mail despatched on Monday, March 20, between 1 a.m. and 10 a.m. Pacific time. Because of the bug, some subscription affirmation emails generated throughout that window had been despatched to the incorrect customers. These emails contained the final 4 digits of one other consumer’s bank card quantity, however full bank card numbers didn’t seem. It’s potential {that a} small variety of subscription affirmation emails might need been incorrectly addressed previous to March 20, though we have now not confirmed any cases of this.
• In ChatGPT, click on on “My account,” then “Handle my subscription” between 1 a.m. and 10 a.m. Pacific time on Monday, March 20. Throughout this window, one other energetic ChatGPT Plus consumer’s first and final identify, electronic mail deal with, cost deal with, the final 4 digits (solely) of a bank card quantity, and bank card expiration date might need been seen. It’s potential that this additionally might have occurred previous to March 20, though we have now not confirmed any cases of this.

We’ve got reached out to inform affected customers that their cost data might have been uncovered. We’re assured that there isn’t any ongoing danger to customers’ information. 

Everybody at OpenAI is dedicated to defending our customers’ privateness and protecting their information secure. It’s a duty we take extremely severely. Sadly, this week we fell wanting that dedication, and of our customers’ expectations. We apologize once more to our customers and to the complete ChatGPT neighborhood and can work diligently to rebuild belief.