Urban VPN Proxy Browser Extension Reportedly Harvested and Sold Private AI Chatbot Conversations via Silent Update
Description
Security researchers reported that the Urban VPN Proxy browser extension introduced AI conversation–harvesting functionality in version 5.5.0, released July 9, 2025. The extension allegedly intercepted and exfiltrated private conversations from AI platforms including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, and others without a user-facing opt-out. The data, including sensitive personal and financial information, was reportedly shared with affiliated data brokers for commercial analytics.
Actors
Alleged Deployers
- urban-cyber-security
Alleged Developers
- urban-cyber-security
- biscience
Harmed Parties
- urban-vpn-proxy-users
- privacy
- perplexity-users
- meta-ai-users
- grok-users
- general-public
- gemini-users
- deepseek-users
- copilot-users
- claude-users
- chatgpt-users
- chatbot-users
- browser-extension-users
- chatbot-developers
- large-language-model-developers
Classification
Risk Domain
Privacy & SecurityRisk Subdomain
2.1. Compromise of privacy by obtaining, leaking or correctly inferring sensitive information
MIT Risk Profile
Topics
Source
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Mitigation Tools
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