MENLO PARK, CALIFORNIA / RankWire.AI / – Meta has paused the sharing of conversations within its Muse AI assistant after cybersecurity experts identified over 6,800 shared chat links that could be retrieved through public internet records. These links potentially revealed sensitive personal and corporate data. On Tuesday, October 20, Meta informed Ars Technica that it had temporarily suspended the feature to evaluate the findings. The company is also exploring modifications to the discoverability of shared links.
Security firm Claroc uncovered more than 6,800 shared Muse links by analyzing passive DNS records. These records document domain name queries and enable web addresses to be searchable. The figure indicates the number of link addresses found rather than the count of sensitive conversations. Claroc published its research on October 18 and stated it initially reported the issue to Meta’s bug bounty program on October 8, providing reproduction steps and example links.
A few hundred conversations were accessed by researchers, and nearly all active shares loaded without requiring a Meta account. Some contained confidential information, such as an internal revenue review from a marketing firm and a small-business loan application. Others included a bank fraud alert with a transaction amount and partial account details. Researchers also discovered confidential interview notes from an executive search and a workplace vacation calendar listing dozens of employees. Many other shared chats contained routine content.
Link architecture contributed to discoverability of chats
The vulnerability originated from how Muse constructed its share URLs. Each link combined the conversation’s title with a randomly generated identifier embedded within the hostname of the URL. The identifier was sufficiently long to prevent guessing. However, when a link was accessed, it triggered a DNS lookup that passive DNS services could log and make searchable. This allowed others to locate the addresses without directly receiving them and to view the chats without signing into a Meta account.
Although Muse requested search engines and AI crawlers not to index its share pages, this did not prevent access through DNS records. The security website urlscan.io stored more than 75 saved scans of Muse share pages. Claroc indicated it found no evidence of misuse, and it did not contact the affected users nor could it determine if others had accessed the links. Meta’s statement did not specify if users affected by this issue would be notified.
Sharing links have now been disabled after assessment
On October 20, Claroc reverified 40 shares that had previously opened without an account. None of these loaded, and the URLs serving the content returned errors. However, conversation titles are still present in passive DNS history. Meta introduced Muse in the United States on September 8 for users aged 18 and older. The assistant can access users’ email, calendar, payment, and health apps. In April, Meta launched its Muse Spark model from its superintelligence laboratory.
This incident underscores increasing worries about data privacy in AI tools and the hazards of sharing conversations that contain sensitive information. Similar issues emerged in 2025 when shared ChatGPT conversations appeared in Google search results. Additionally, Meta has faced legal challenges regarding user safety, including a $567 million settlement ordered by a New Mexico court in August. The company has yet to specify when Muse’s sharing feature will be reinstated.