Simon Willison notes that OpenAI’s previously teased Lockdown Mode is now live for eligible personal and self-serve Business ChatGPT accounts. The feature does not stop prompt injections from appearing in content, but limits outbound network requests that could leak sensitive data. He sees it as a direct mitigation for the exfiltration leg of the “Lethal Trifecta,” while implying default ChatGPT settings are not robust against determined data theft attempts.
Simon Willison highlights a 404 Media report about hackers taking over Instagram accounts through Meta's AI support bot. A video reportedly shows an attacker asking the bot to link a target account to a new email address and providing a code. Willison argues this barely qualifies as prompt injection: the core failure was granting a support bot enough authority to fast-forward the account recovery process.
Simon Willison summarizes a PromptArmor report about Microsoft Copilot Cowork and agentic data exfiltration risks. The issue involved agents sending messages to a user’s own inbox without approval, where rendered external images could trigger requests to attacker-controlled sites. Because OneDrive can create pre-authenticated download links, a successful prompt injection could leak links that allow attackers to download files.
As AI chatbots adopt increasingly sophisticated personas, hackers are shifting from basic prompt injections to social engineering attacks targeting these "personalities." Researchers warn that manipulating a chatbot's defined role (e.g., customer service or empathetic companion) makes it easier to bypass safety guardrails. This evolution poses a significant threat to agentic AI workflows that rely on consistent role-playing and external data integration.
Google's AI search feature, "AI Overviews," was recently found by users on the social platform X to have a rather absurd system vulnerability. When a user…
According to a TechCrunch report, following a recent AI feature update to Google Search, a baffling system bug emerged: users can now cause the entire Google…
Well-known tech blogger Simon Willison has analyzed the announcements from Google I/O 2026. Since many major announcements are still in the "coming soon"…