I knew things were not quite right when I had to throw a towel over a broken Ikea lamp to block out its light. How did I get here? I cover fancy and capable tech for a living, and yet, it took me two years to get rid of a pair of old, broken Ikea lamps in my bedroom. Then I got some floor lamps from Govee that changed everything.
Technology
Third-party breach exposes ChatGPT account details
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ChatGPT went from novelty to necessity in less than two years. It is now part of how you work, learn, write, code and search. OpenAI has said the service has roughly 800 million weekly active users, which puts it in the same weight class as the biggest consumer platforms in the world.
When a tool becomes that central to your daily life, you assume the people running it can keep your data safe. That trust took a hit recently after OpenAI confirmed that personal information linked to API accounts had been exposed in a breach involving one of its third-party partners.
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The breach highlights how even trusted analytics partners can expose sensitive account details. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
What you need to know about the ChatGPT breach
OpenAI’s notification email places the breach squarely on Mixpanel, a major analytics provider the company used on its API platform. The email stresses that OpenAI’s own systems were not breached. No chat histories, billing information, passwords or API keys were exposed. Instead, the stolen data came from Mixpanel’s environment and included names, email addresses, Organization IDs, coarse location and technical metadata from user browsers.
FAKE CHATGPT APPS ARE HIJACKING YOUR PHONE WITHOUT YOU KNOWING
That sounds harmless on the surface. The email calls this “limited” analytics data, but the label feels like PR cushioning more than anything else. For attackers, this kind of metadata is gold. A dataset that reveals who you are, where you work, what machine you use and how your account is structured gives threat actors everything they need to run targeted phishing and impersonation campaigns.
The biggest red flag is the exposure of Organization IDs. Anyone who builds on the OpenAI API knows how sensitive these identifiers are. They sit at the center of internal billing, usage limits, account hierarchy and support workflows. If an attacker quotes your Org ID during a fake billing alert or support request, it suddenly becomes very hard to dismiss the message as a scam.
OpenAI’s own reconstructed timeline raises bigger questions. Mixpanel first detected a smishing attack on November 8. Attackers accessed internal systems the next day and exported OpenAI’s data. That data was gone for more than two weeks before Mixpanel told OpenAI on November 25. Only then did OpenAI alert everyone. It is a long and worrying silent period, and it left API users exposed to targeted attacks without even knowing they were at risk. OpenAI says it cut Mixpanel off the next day.
The size of the risk and the policy problem behind it
The timing and the scale matter here. ChatGPT sits at the center of the generative AI boom. It does not just have consumer traffic. It has sensitive conversations from developers, employees, startups and enterprises. Even though the breach affected API accounts rather than consumer chat history, the exposure still highlights a wider issue. When a platform reaches almost a billion weekly users, any crack becomes a national-scale problem.
Regulators have been warning about this exact scenario. Vendor security is one of the weak links in modern tech policy. Data protection laws tend to focus on what a company does with the information you give them. They rarely provide strong guardrails around the entire chain of third-party services that process this data along the way. Mixpanel is not an obscure operator. It is a widely used analytics platform trusted by thousands of companies. Yet it still lost a dataset that should never have been accessible to an attacker.
Companies should treat analytics providers the same way they treat core infrastructure. If you cannot guarantee that your vendors follow the same security standards you do, you should not be collecting the data in the first place. For a platform as influential as ChatGPT, the responsibility is even higher. People do not fully understand how many invisible services sit behind a single AI query. They trust the brand they interact with, not the long list of partners behind it.
Attackers can use leaked metadata to craft convincing phishing emails that look legitimate. (Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
8 steps you can take to stay safer when using AI tools
If you rely on AI tools every day, it’s worth tightening your personal security before your data ends up floating around in someone else’s analytics dashboard. You cannot control how every vendor handles your information, but you can make it much harder for attackers to target you.
1) Use strong, unique passwords
Treat every AI account as if it holds something valuable because it does. Long, unique passwords stored in a reliable password manager reduce the fallout if one platform gets breached. This also protects you from credential stuffing, where attackers try the same password across multiple services.
Next, see if your email has been exposed in past breaches. Our #1 password manager (see Cyberguy.com/Passwords) pick includes a built-in breach scanner that checks whether your email address or passwords have appeared in known leaks. If you discover a match, immediately change any reused passwords and secure those accounts with new, unique credentials.
Check out the best expert-reviewed password managers of 2025 at Cyberguy.com.
2) Turn on phishing-resistant 2FA
AI platforms have become prime targets, so they rely on stronger 2FA. Use an authenticator app or a hardware security key. SMS codes can be intercepted or redirected, which makes them unreliable during large-scale phishing campaigns.
3) Use strong antivirus software
Another important step you can take to protect yourself from phishing attacks is to install strong antivirus software on your devices. This can also alert you to phishing emails and ransomware scams, helping you keep your personal information and digital assets safe.
The best way to safeguard yourself from malicious links that install malware, potentially accessing your private information, is to have strong antivirus software installed on all your devices. This protection can also alert you to phishing emails and ransomware scams, keeping your personal information and digital assets safe.
Get my picks for the best 2025 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android & iOS devices at Cyberguy.com.
PARENTS BLAME CHATGPT FOR SON’S SUICIDE, LAWSUIT ALLEGES OPENAI WEAKENED SAFEGUARDS TWICE BEFORE TEEN’S DEATH
4) Limit what personal or sensitive data you share
Think twice before pasting private conversations, company documents, medical notes or addresses into a chat window. Many AI tools store recent history for model improvements unless you opt out, and some route data through external vendors. Anything you paste could live on longer than you expect.
5) Use a data-removal service to shrink your online footprint
Attackers often combine leaked metadata with information they pull from people-search sites and old listings. A good data-removal service scans the web for exposed personal details and submits removal requests on your behalf. Some services even let you send custom links for takedowns. Cleaning up these traces makes targeted phishing and impersonation attacks much harder to pull off.
While no service can guarantee the complete removal of your data from the internet, a data removal service is really a smart choice. They aren’t cheap, and neither is your privacy. These services do all the work for you by actively monitoring and systematically erasing your personal information from hundreds of websites. It’s what gives me peace of mind and has proven to be the most effective way to erase your personal data from the internet. By limiting the information available, you reduce the risk of scammers cross-referencing data from breaches with information they might find on the dark web, making it harder for them to target you.
Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting Cyberguy.com.
Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web: Cyberguy.com.
6) Treat unexpected support messages with suspicion
Attackers know users panic when they hear about API limits, billing failures or account verification issues. If you get an email claiming to be from an AI provider, do not click the link. Open the site manually or use the official app to confirm whether the alert is real.
Events like this show why strengthening your personal security habits matters more than ever. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
7) Keep your devices and software updated
A lot of attacks succeed because devices run outdated operating systems or browsers. Regular updates close vulnerabilities that could be used to steal session tokens, capture keystrokes or hijack login flows. Updates are boring, but they prevent a surprising amount of trouble.
8) Delete accounts you no longer need
Old accounts sit around with old passwords and old data, and they become easy targets. If you’re not actively using a particular AI tool anymore, delete it from your account list and remove any saved information. It reduces your exposure and limits how many databases contain your details.
Kurt’s key takeaway
This breach may not have touched chat logs or payment details, but it shows how fragile the wider AI ecosystem can be. Your data is only as safe as the least secure partner in the chain. With ChatGPT now approaching a billion weekly users, that chain needs tighter rules, better oversight and fewer blind spots. If anything, this should be a reminder that the rush toward AI adoption needs stronger policy guardrails. Companies cannot hide behind transparent emails after the fact. They need to prove that the tools you rely on every day are secure at every layer, including the ones you never see.
Do you trust AI platforms with your personal information? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.
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Copyright 2025 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.
Multiple sources are reporting that the Trump administration has dismissed the entire National Science Board (NSB). The NSB advises the president and Congress on the National Science Foundation (NSF), which has already been funding research at historically low levels and has seen significant delays in doling out that funding. The NSF has been fundamental in helping develop technology used in MRIs, cellphones, and it even helped get Duolingo get off the ground.
In a statement, Zoe Lofgren, the ranking Democrat on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, said:
“This is the latest stupid move made by a president who continues to harm science and American innovation. The NSB is apolitical. It advises the president on the future of NSF. It unfortunately is no surprise a president who has attacked NSF from day one would seek to destroy the board that helps guide the Foundation. Will the president fill the NSB with MAGA loyalists who won’t stand up to him as he hands over our leadership in science to our adversaries? A real bozo the clown move.”
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Go to any people finder site right now and type in your name. What comes back might shock you: your age, home address, phone number, the names of your relatives, where you used to live and even what your property is worth.
You didn’t put that there, and you never consented to it. Still, it’s out there, and anyone with an internet connection can see it.
Scammers figured this out a long time ago. Since then, they’ve turned it into a system for targeting you, your parents and your kids.
So how does it actually work, and more importantly, what can you do to stop it?
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HOW TO REMOVE YOUR PERSONAL INFO FROM PEOPLE SEARCH SITES
A single person search result can reveal your address, relatives and years of personal history in seconds. (Kury “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
How scammers find your personal data online
Before a criminal sends a phishing email or makes a call, they do their homework. Importantly, they don’t need to hack anything. Instead, they use the same public websites that anyone can access.
In less than 10 minutes, a scammer can build a detailed profile on you using data broker sites like Spokeo, Whitepages, BeenVerified and Intelius. Here’s what that profile looks like and how they build it step by step.
Step 1: How scammers search your name on people finder sites
It starts simply. A scammer types your name into a search site. Within seconds, they see results like:
John M. Patterson | Age: 61 | Cleveland, OH
- Also known as: John Michael Patterson
- Current address: [your street address]
- Previous addresses: 4 records found
- Phone numbers: 2 found
- Email addresses: 3 found
- Relatives: 5 found
That is the starting point. Many sites show partial data for free. That is often enough to confirm identity. Full reports cost only a few dollars, so access is easy. Scammers can repeat this process hundreds of times a day, building detailed profiles with very little effort.
Step 2: How scammers map your family and relatives
Next, this is where things get personal. Data broker profiles show more than your name. They reveal your family network.
That often includes:
- Spouse or partner
- Children
- Parents
- Siblings
- Roommates
As a result, scammers can target more than one person. For example, they may learn that your elderly parent lives alone or your child just moved. Because of that, scams like the grandparent scam feel real instead of random.
Step 3: How scammers use your address history
At this point, your address history becomes critical. It is not just about where you live. Instead, scammers use it to:
- Verify identity
- Find relatives
- Build trust
For example, referencing a past address makes a caller sound legitimate. That detail alone can lower suspicion.
Step 4: How scammers use your financial data
More importantly, data brokers also reveal financial clues. These may include:
- Estimated income
- Home value
- Ownership status
- Length of residence
This information comes from public records, not hacking. Because of this, scammers tailor their approach. Higher-income targets may see investment scams.
Others may get job or rental scams instead.
GOOGLE SEARCH LED TO A COSTLY SCAM CALL
Scammers use data broker profiles to map your family and build more convincing, targeted attacks. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Step 5: How scammers verify and cross-check your data
Before launching a scam, criminals often double-check everything. They don’t rely on just one site. Instead, they compare multiple data broker profiles, social media accounts and public records to confirm details are accurate.
For example, they may:
- Match your address across different sites
- Check Facebook or LinkedIn to confirm family relationships
- Look for recent moves, job changes or life events
Because of this, the profile becomes more reliable. That extra step is what turns a guess into something that feels real.
Step 6: How scammers create targeted scams
At that point, they have everything they need. They know your name, family, address and financial details. Now the scam becomes highly specific.
By the time you hear from them, they already know enough to sound like someone you trust.
- They may call your parent pretending to be you
- They may bypass bank security questions
- They may send texts that look like your child
- They may send emails that reference your life
As a result, the scam feels believable.
Data broker scams are already being prosecuted
This has already landed in court. The U.S. Department of Justice has prosecuted companies like Epsilon, Macromark Inc. and KBM Group for selling data to scammers. Epsilon alone paid $150 million to victims.
At the same time, data tied to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center shows more than half of fraud cases involving older Americans were linked to exposed personal data. That shows how serious this problem has become.
Why is your personal data on data broker sites
You do not need to sign up for these sites. Instead, your data comes from many sources, including:
- Voter records
- Property records
- Court filings
- Social media
- Marketing surveys
- Loyalty programs
- Phone directories
- Other data brokers
Because of this, your information spreads quickly.
Why your data keeps reappearing online
Even after removal, your data often comes back. Data brokers constantly update their databases. They buy and resell fresh records. Because of that, one-time removal is not enough.
By the time a scam reaches you or your family, it is often built on real data pulled from multiple public sources. (Wei Leng Tay/Bloomberg)
How to disrupt a scammer’s research before they reach your family
The goal isn’t to disappear completely. It’s to make the profile messy enough, incomplete enough and hard enough to find that scammers move on to easier targets.
Here’s what you can do:
- Search for yourself first. Go to Spokeo, Whitepages, BeenVerified or any other people search site, and look up your own name. See exactly what’s there before a scammer does. That snapshot is your starting point.
- Submit opt-out requests manually. Every major data broker is required to honor removal requests. The catch: There are hundreds of them, each with its own process, and they relist your information regularly. It’s a full-time job.
- Use an automated removal service. This is where I strongly recommend a data removal service. Instead of spending hours submitting individual opt-out forms, a data removal service sends removal requests to 420-plus data brokers on your behalf and keeps sending them when your data reappears. Because it will reappear.
- Set up family alerts. Tell your elderly relatives that you will never ask for money via text from an unknown number. Establish a code word. Scams work because they create panic. A simple family protocol breaks the spell.
- Change your security questions. If your bank still uses “mother’s maiden name” or “city you were born in” as verification, that information is likely already on a data broker site. Switch to nonsense answers that only you know and store them in a password manager.
Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting Cyberguy.com
Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web: Cyberguy.com
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Kurt’s key takeaways
This kind of scam works because it feels personal. When someone knows your name, your family and even where you used to live, your guard drops. That is exactly what criminals are counting on.
The uncomfortable truth is that your information is already out there, often in more places than you realize. You do not need to panic, but you do need to be proactive. The more you limit what is easily accessible, the harder it becomes for someone to build a convincing story around you. Start with a simple search of your own name. That one step can completely change how you think about your digital footprint. From there, take action to remove what you can and protect what you cannot.
If a stranger can build a detailed profile on your family in minutes, what does that say about how much of your life is already exposed online? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com
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- For simple, real-world ways to spot scams early and stay protected, visit CyberGuy.com – trusted by millions who watch CyberGuy on TV daily.
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Copyright 2026 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.
Those Ikea lamps were around for two years after I moved from Orange County to Los Angeles. Soon after that move, my mom’s Parkinson’s disease — a neurodegenerative condition with no cure — progressed quickly, my mental health took a hit, and most of my own to-do list quietly slid to the back burner as she lost mobility and more urgent things took over. So the big, ugly lamps just… stayed. They became part of the background, like everything else I wasn’t taking care of.
I didn’t even have them plugged into a smart plug — another small upgrade I kept meaning to add to my bedroom, despite having them all over the apartment — which meant I had to get up every time I wanted to turn one on.
One blasted harsh, overpoweringly bright light through a cracked shade. The other was warmer — but not warm enough — so I solved that problem one exhausted night by just throwing a towel over it. Yes, a fire hazard. Yes, I meant it as a temporary fix for a few days. But scattered caregiving brain means temporary fixes can turn into long-term solutions. At some point, it stopped feeling temporary and just became my new normal, even if it clearly wasn’t.
Then my brother bought my mom and me two separate Govee Uplighter Floor Lamps for Christmas, and my Ikea lamp troubles were over. I did not expect to develop an emotional attachment to a lamp. But I did, and now it’s one of my favorite gadgets.
The Govee was quick and easy to assemble, and much slimmer, taking up way less space than the old lamps. As I got rid of the old and set up the new, I felt an odd sense of relief and a small sense of control I hadn’t felt since the move.
Within a week, the old lamp was out of my room. That small shift gave me momentum. I started decluttering other corners that had quietly piled up, things I’d been stepping around for months without really seeing anymore.
The bedroom stopped feeling like an unfinished project I was merely surviving, and started feeling steadier. Calmer. Like a place I could finally exhale in. My days often feel structured around what my mom needs and what has to get done next. I don’t really think about my own space at all, except as something else I haven’t gotten to yet. Having a room that felt calm, even a little bit, made it easier to wind down at the end of the day instead of carrying that feeling of being “on” all the time into the night. It brought me back to myself, even if only a little.
I could relax in a way I hadn’t in a while, without feeling like I should be getting up to do something else. I could dim the lamp from my phone instead of standing up. I could shift from cool to warm without needing a towel and risking starting a fire. There’s a ripple effect that slowly moves across the wall and, for reasons I can’t fully explain, genuinely helps me fall asleep. Cycling through soft colors in the app and syncing it with ambient music is soothing. Sometimes, the changing colors feel a little bit like magic, and I find myself watching them the way I might have as a kid, reminded — briefly — that life can be more playful than it’s felt in a while. The warm, shifting light seems to have a similar effect on my mom, who lives with me, sometimes comforting and even dazzling her as she navigates some of the more difficult parts of the disease, like sundowning, along with her own quiet grief of losing pieces of herself.
And I love that it does all that and more without demanding much. Setup took about 15 to 20 minutes and didn’t require that I try to wrap my head around tools. You control it through the Govee app on your phone, and because it supports Matter, you can also pair it with platforms like Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant for voice control. It offers a wide range of colors, along with 80 preset scenes and seven music modes. At $179.99, it’s pricey, but it’s versatile, basically acting as three lights in one: a top section that casts a soft ripple onto the ceiling, a colorful middle light, and a regular white light at the bottom.
It’s an amazing gift, truly, and I am so grateful for it. Mine, however, had just one problem: It sometimes forgets to be a lamp. It doesn’t lose Wi-Fi. It doesn’t show as offline in the app. It just turns off randomly. The first time it happened, I was rewatching Stranger Things to prepare for the last season. The lights flickered on screen, and then my room went dark. The vibe went from relaxing to terrifying in a second, as I briefly wondered if reality and TV had merged (I might have also had too much wine). Once my brain rebooted, I opened the Govee app and turned it back on. No problem. I assumed it was a power or Wi-Fi issue. Govee sent me a new unit that worked perfectly.
When it works — which is most of the time — it quietly makes my life better. And somehow, that’s been enough to make it one of my new favorite gadgets. It didn’t fix everything, but it helped me start taking care of my space — and myself — again.
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