Researchers Bypass ChatGPT Lockdown Mode to Exfiltrate Chats Without User Interaction

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a now-patched vulnerability that could be exploited to bypass Lockdown Mode protections in OpenAI ChatGPT. Lockdown Mode was introduced by the artificial intelligence (AI) company in June 2026 as an optional setting to minimize data exfiltration risks arising from prompt injections. "The flaw could enable silent chat data theft, phishing, and malware delivery, including zero-click data exfiltration in the ChatGPT desktop application," Eli Smadja, head of research at Check Point, said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The sandbox also prevents the rendered content from communicating with external resources without user consent. Lockdown Mode acts as a security barrier, mitigating data exfiltration risk by limiting outbound network requests that could be used to transfer sensitive information to an attacker-controlled infrastructure.