Lovable denies data breach after researcher exposes user data through simple API calls

Lovable denies data leak, cites 'intentional behavior'

Vibe-coding platform Lovable is pooh-poohing a researcher's finding that anyone could open a free account on the service and read other users' sensitive info, including credentials, chat history, and source code. However, the company's story keeps changing: First it attributed the publicly exposed info to "intentional behavior" and "unclear documentation," then threw bug-bounty service HackerOne under the bus. The drama appears to be the latest example of an AI firm, in this case a startup that claims a $6.6 billion valuation, shirking responsibility for security flaws in its products. Companies including Uber, Zendesk, and Deutsche Telekom all use Lovable's vibe coding AI tool, according to its latest funding announcement. "Lovable has a mass data breach affecting every project created before November 2025," a researcher who goes by @weezerOSINT on X posted on Monday. "I made a Lovable account today and was able to access another user's source code, database credentials, AI chat histories, and customer data are all readable by any free account." The researcher said they reported the flaw 48 days ago, and that Lovable labeled it a "duplicate submission," and left it open. The researcher then sent a bug report to HackerOne, and screen shots show a March 3 submission date. Subsequent posts show the AI leaking secrets and personal data in chats. The leak stems from a Broken Object Level Authorization (BOLA) vulnerability, which occurs when an API exposes endpoints that allow users to access or modify sensitive data belonging to other users due to missing ownership validation. According to the bug hunter, no offensive hacking is needed to trigger the bug. They say they made five API calls from a free account and gained access to another user's profile, their public projects, and source code, and then extracted database credentials from the source code. Lovable didn't reply to The Register's inquiries. In X posts later on Monday, however, the AI coding company first said it was "made aware of concerns regarding the visibility of chat messages and code on Lovable projects with public visibility settings," and added: "To be clear: We did not suffer a data breach." The company then went on to blame its documentation - specifically "our documentation of what 'public' implies was unclear, and that's a failure on us." It also noted that chat messages for public projects "used to be visible," but that is no longer the case. And then it offered this head-scratching message about intentionally making prompts and source code visible: So it's by design - unless you're an enterprise customer, that is. For this group of users, "being able to set visibility to public for new projects has been disabled since May 25, 2025." Later on Monday, Lovable issued a new statement on X, apologizing that its earlier post "didn't properly address our mistake," explaining how it got into this public-versus-private-project mess in the first place, and then blaming its bug bounty partner, HackerOne, for its failure to fix the flaw. Users, the startup said, can select a "public" or "private" option for projects. "A public project meant the entire project was public, both chat and code," Lovable explained. "Over time, we realized this was confusing. Many users thought 'public' just meant others could see their published app, not the chat of an unpublished project. That's reasonable." Early free-tier users didn't get an option to create private projects. They had to upgrade to a paid plan if they wanted to do that - until May 2025, when Lovable started letting free-tier users make private projects, and disabled the public setting for enterprise customers altogether. In December 2025, the company switched to private by default across all tiers. "We also retroactively patched our API so public project chats couldn't be accessed, no matter what," according to the company's mea culpa. "Unfortunately, in February, while unifying permissions in our backend, we accidentally re-enabled access to chats on public projects." This was the security issue that WeezerOSINT reported Lovable via HackerOne. Chaos ensued. "Unfortunately, the reports were closed without escalation because our HackerOne partners thought that seeing public projects' chats was the intended behaviour," Lovable wrote. "Upon learning this, we immediately reverted the change to make all public projects' chats private again." HackerOne declined to comment initially, pending further review. "Given the nature of customer programs and the need to review details carefully, we're not able to comment further right now," the company told The Register. "We want to ensure anything we share is accurate and responsible. We'll follow up once we've completed that review." Lovable noted it appreciates the researchers who uncovered this mess. "We understand that pointing to documentation issues alone was not enough here," it said. "We'll do better." ®

Lovable left AI prompts and user data exposed, one researcher found

A researcher revealed that the vibe-coding platform Lovable exposed users' chat histories with AI models to other users accessing the platform through an API (application programming interface). X user @weezerOSINT, reported the exposure in a post on Monday. "I made a Lovable account today and was able to access another user's source code, database credentials, AI chat histories, and customer data are all readable by any free account," the researcher wrote. The post included a screenshot of another Lovable user's project code and chats, along with an unresolved ticket for the bug that allegedly caused the data leak. In a follow-up conversation with Fast Company, @weezerOSINT (who did not share his real name) says it took 30 minutes using xAI's Grok 4.2 model to conduct the research, adding that before AI, finding similar exposures would take hours or days. @weezerOSINT reported the issue via HackerOne, a cybersecurity company that runs bug bounty and vulnerability disclosure programs, in early March. On Monday, the researcher showed that Lovable projects created before November 2025 still expose the data.

Lovable admits error in chat visibility settings, says issue fixed now - The Economic Times

Lovable, an app-building platform, has apologized for chat data exposure in public projects. The company clarified it was a mix of unclear product design and a technical error, not a data breach. Users could previously make projects public, with chat history visible. Changes were made to default projects to private.AI-powered app-building platform Lovable issued an apology explaining how chat data was inadvertently exposed in public projects, and added that it has now fixed the issue. In a detailed statement posted on X, the company said its earlier communication "didn't properly address" the problem. It clarified that the issue was not a data breach, but a mix of unclear product design and a technical error. Lovable explained that initially users could make their projects 'public' or 'private'. Public projects were intended to be fully open, similar to public repositories on platforms like GitHub, including both code and chat history. However, over time, the company realised that many users interpreted 'public' differently, assuming it applied only to the published app and not to underlying chats or development data, which were actually visible to others. The statement comes after the startup responded to claims about client data being breached, adding that the issue stemmed from unclear documentation rather than a security breach. In a series of posts on X, a researcher with the handle "impulsive" (@weezerOSINT) mentioned he was able to access another developer's active project, including its full source code, database credentials, customer records, AI chat histories, and related data. Clarifying its stance, the company said on Tuesday that it has begun tightening controls. What led to this? The company said it had already started making changes last year. Earlier, projects on the free tier were public by default. The company changed this in May 2025, and allowed users to create private projects on the free tier. In December, it made all projects private by default. However, a system update earlier this year accidentally turned chat visibility back on for some public projects. The issue was reported by researchers but not flagged as a problem initially as it was mistaken for intended behaviour. Lovable said it has now reversed the change and ensured that chats in public projects are no longer accessible. The company acknowledged that its documentation and settings were confusing. "We understand that pointing to documentation issues alone was not enough here. We'll do better," it said. Lovable, a vibe coding platform, allows users to build applications through conversational interfaces, making chat histories a core part of the development process.

Lovable denies data breach, says public settings are 'intentional'

Lovable data breach: Stockholm-based AI app-building platform Lovable said it did not suffer a data breach after concerns surfaced over the visibility of chat messages and code in projects set to public. Stockholm-based AI app-building platform Lovable said it did not suffer a data breach after concerns surfaced over the visibility of chat messages and code in projects set to public. The startup acknowledged that its documentation around what "public" meant had been unclear. In a statement posted on X on Monday, the company said it had been "made aware of concerns regarding the visibility of chat messages and code on Lovable projects with public visibility settings." It added that the issue stemmed from unclear documentation rather than a security breach. The statement follows disclosures by a researcher posting under the handle "impulsive" (@weezerOSINT), who went public with the issue after reporting it to the company more than six weeks ago. In a series of posts on X, the researcher said he was able to access another developer's active project, including its full source code, database credentials, customer records, AI chat histories and related data. "This is not hacking," the researcher wrote. "This is five API calls from a free account." Lovable issues clarification on data breach In response, Lovable said chat messages in public projects "used to be visible," but added that this is "now no longer possible." The company drew a distinction between chat history and code, saying the visibility of code in public projects was intentional and consistent with the product's design. It added that while it had experimented with different ways of surfacing build history, the core behaviour around code access had remained unchanged. The company also stated that enterprise customers have not been able to set new projects to public since May 25, 2025. Lovable, founded in 2023, raised $330 million last December at a $6.6 billion valuation, according to a Reuters report.