The Pulse
Claroc finds patient data and passwords in open Grok-built apps
Claroc says 35,578 live apps built with Grok opened without a sign-in, including some containing patient information and employee passwords. SpaceXSI removed 24 apps built by its own and X staff after the researchers reported them, Claroc says.
Patient information, employee passwords and confidential business materials appeared in publicly accessible apps built with Grok, according to a report from security firm Claroc. Claroc said 35,578 of the 37,571 live apps it tested opened without a sign-in, though most did not contain the sensitive material described in its findings.
The researchers estimated that roughly 650 to 800 apps contained private data. Grok's Build mode lets people describe an app in a chat and have Grok write it.
What the researchers found
Claroc said it used subdomain discovery techniques to collect 43,601 app names under grok.me and tried 43,551 addresses. Of the live apps, 1,993, or 5.3%, returned the error associated with access restricted to the owner or invited users.
The firm said most open apps were games, landing pages and calculators. It estimated that about one in 10 held sensitive business or personal material and roughly 2% held material it rated high or critical.
One app held an intensive care briefing for a single patient, including lab results, imaging and ventilator status, according to the report. Another was a hospital group's staff event app with a searchable roster of more than 3,500 employees.
The code for a contractor's timesheet app contained 18 accounts with passwords in plain text, including administrator accounts. Other examples included a fire department shift board with names, badge numbers and duty hours, and a cruise ship checklist naming crew members and their employee IDs.
Beyond SpaceXSI and X, Claroc identified 30 organizations with internal data in open apps, including 26 with more than 1,000 employees and six Fortune 500 companies.
How the apps were found
Published Grok apps each receive their own hostname under grok.me. Claroc said that when someone opens an app, a DNS lookup for the hostname can be collected by passive DNS services and found through a pattern search.
The researchers said they loaded each app's first page from the public internet without signing in, then read saved copies offline. An AI model flagged pages that appeared private, and the team checked flagged apps by hand. It said it did not submit forms, call server functions or use passwords or keys found in other people's apps.
Tests and the company's response
Claroc said it built two apps with made-up data to test Grok's settings. Publishing required a paid plan in the account it used. In that account, the publish panel offered access to anyone with the link, invited users or only the owner, with the first option already selected.
One test app was a customer list for a sales team. Claroc said Grok added sign-in, but an uninvited Google account could enter, view customers, change a record and delete another because the generated code added the visitor to the team before checking membership. The researchers stressed that they tested writing and deletion only on their own apps.
SpaceXSI told a reporter that Grok apps remain private until their creator chooses to share them and that publishing requires several steps, according to Claroc. The company also said employee accounts default to access for the owner only.
Staff apps taken down
The researchers found 24 open apps built by SpaceXSI and X staff, including a confidential onboarding plan and a sales territory map covering 594 strategic accounts. The material also included eight X advertising proposals, media plans and decks, one of them marked confidential and addressed to a U.S. federal agency.
Claroc reported the issue to SpaceXSI on November 8 and supplied further findings the following day. By November 10, the company had taken down the 24 staff apps but not the open apps belonging to other users and organizations, the report said.
The security firm said it had begun notifying affected organizations and had emailed three by publication. It withheld hostnames, app titles and links that could lead readers to an app or a person.