ChatGPT File Download Vulnerability: Guardrail Bypass to Local File Inclusion — Technical Analysis and Mitigations
By
HackMoN Ai
Summary
Security researcher zer0dac discovered a vulnerability chain in OpenAI's ChatGPT platform that combines LLM social engineering (guardrail bypass via conversational framing) with a classic path traversal flaw in the file download endpoint. This allowed retrieval of restricted system files like /etc/passwd from the ChatGPT sandbox environment. The article provides a technical deep dive into the exploit mechanics, including inconsistent path normalization, and offers mitigation strategies.
Source
bskyChatGPT File Download Vulnerability: Guardrail Bypass to Local File Inclusion — Technical Analysis and Mitigationsundercodetesting.comKey quotes
· 2 pulledSecurity researcher zer0dac uncovered that by manipulating ChatGPT's guardrails through conversational framing and then exploiting inconsistent path normalization in the file download endpoint, it was possible to retrieve files such as /etc/passwd.
A recently disclosed proof-of-concept vulnerability chain in OpenAI's ChatGPT platform demonstrated how an attacker could combine social engineering of a large language model (LLM) with a classic path traversal flaw to access restricted system files within the ChatGPT sandbox environment.
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