NITDA warns of ChatGPT vulnerabilities that could cause data exposure

By Abubakar Yunusa

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has issued a security advisory, warning users about newly discovered vulnerabilities in OpenAI’s ChatGPT models.
NITDA issued the advisory in a post on Sunday on its official X account.
The agency said seven flaws were identified in “GPT-4o and GPT-5 models” that could enable attackers to manipulate the system through indirect prompt injection.
“By embedding hidden instructions in web pages, comments, or crafted URLs, attackers can cause ChatGPT to execute unintended commands simply through normal browsing, summarisation, or search actions,” the agency said.
“Some flaws also enable attackers to bypass safety filters using trusted domains, exploit markdown rendering bugs to hide malicious content and even poison ChatGPT memory so that injected instructions persist across future interactions.
“While OpenAI has fixed parts of the issue, LLMs still struggle to reliably separate genuine user intent from malicious data.”
The agency warned that the weaknesses pose significant risks, including unauthorised system actions, data exposure, distorted outputs, and behavioural manipulation.
These threats, according to the data body, could be triggered even when users do not click on anything, particularly when ChatGPT processes search results or online content containing hidden commands.
NITDA urged organisations to “limit or disable browsing/summarisation of untrusted sites within enterprise environments”.
“Only enable ChatGPT capabilities like browsing or memory when operationally necessary,” the agency said.
NITDA also recommended that users “regularly update and patch the GPT-4o and GPT-5 models to ensure that any known vulnerabilities are addressed”.
The agency directed users to contact its computer emergency readiness and response team (CERRT) for further enquiries.