Over 100000 ChatGPT accounts hacked! India is the worst-affected country

Ever since its public release in November 2022, ChatGPT has taken the world by storm. The generative conversational chatbot by OpenAI is among the most popular artificial intelligence tools in the world with millions of people using it globally. However, this also makes it a perfect hunting ground for hackers and malicious actors. In fact, a new report has revealed that ChatGPT has suffered a massive data breach where more than 100,000 accounts have been affected. Making it worse, India is among the leading nations affected by this hack.

Group-IB, a Singapore-based cybersecurity firm has released a report where it revealed that as many as 101,134 accounts have been hacked. The report mentioned, “The number of available logs containing compromised ChatGPT accounts reached a peak of 26,802 in May 2023. According to Group-IB’s findings, the Asia-Pacific region has experienced the highest concentration of ChatGPT credentials being offered for sale over the past year”. Group-IB’s Threat Intelligence platform found these compromised credentials within the logs of info-stealing malware traded on illicit dark web marketplaces over the past year.

India, Pakistan among the worst-affected nations

The report analyzes a period from June 2022 to March 2023 and has found that information-stealing malware Raccoon, Vidar, and Redline were the top 3 such stealers associated with the compromised accounts.

“Asia-Pacific had over 40,000 compromised accounts between June 2022 and May 2023. India is the most affected country with over 12,000 stolen credentials being sold. The biggest threat to users of ChatGPT through exposed credentials is the exposure of conversations between users and ChatGPT, which may include other sensitive information, whether it’s personally identifiable information, or workplace-related information, including sensitive company data,” Satnam Narang, Senior Staff Research Engineer, Tenable told HT Tech. Tenable is a cybersecurity company based in Columbia, Maryland.

Other regions affected by the attack include the Middle East and Africa (24,925 compromised accounts), Europe (16,951 compromised accounts), and Latin America (12,314 compromised accounts).

Use 2-factor authentication to ensure safety

Group-IB has also issued an advisory to mitigate such incidents. It said, “To mitigate the risks associated with compromised ChatGPT accounts, Group-IB advises users to update their passwords regularly and implement two-factor authentication. By enabling 2FA, users are required to provide an additional verification code, typically sent to their mobile devices, before accessing their ChatGPT accounts”.