GhostShares research finds 35,578 Grok apps exposed to public via default link settings
·2026.11.10 09:00
Key point
The GhostShares investigation found that Grok's default 'Anyone with the link' setting and DNS-discoverable hostnames exposed 35,578 apps, affecting 30 external organizations and SpaceXSI/X staff.
Details
- GhostShares (Claroc) identified 35,578 Grok apps (94.7% of 37,571 online) accessible without login due to default 'Anyone with the link' settings. The apps were discovered via passive DNS subdomain enumeration.
- 24 apps created by SpaceXSI and X staff were exposed, containing confidential onboarding plans, sales territory maps for 594 accounts, and federal advertising proposals.
- Data from 30 external organizations was leaked, including 26 with over 1,000 employees and 6 Fortune 500 companies, spanning sectors like construction, energy, and healthcare.
- Grok's default security configuration allows unauthenticated access to apps with databases, and its sign-in flow adds users to teams without verifying membership, enabling data modification by non-owners (tested on Claroc's own apps).
- SpaceXSI removed the 24 staff apps but did not address other users' exposed apps, maintaining that the default access setting is a design choice rather than a bug.
- Claroc recommends serving shared apps via unguessable paths, adding organization-specific email restrictions, and changing the default access setting to 'Only you'.
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