Artificial Intelligence

Security Firm Says 35,578 Grok Build Apps Opened Without a Sign-In, Including 24 From SpaceXSI and X Staff

Claroc says Grok's publish step proposed 'Anyone with the link' in its tests and that app addresses were findable through passive DNS; SpaceXSI says apps are private until their creator chooses to share them.

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Security Firm Says 35,578 Grok Build Apps Opened Without a Sign-In, Including 24 From SpaceXSI and X Staff
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A laptop with colorful code on the screen and a dark mug in the background

Illustrative photo of a laptop with colorful code on the screen and a dark mug in the background; it is not Grok Build, Claroc, SpaceXSI, or any app named in this article. The screen shows readable PHP code, including WordPress function names such as wp_get_attachment_url, and a row of dock or taskbar icons. Keyboard letter legends are visible. No manufacturer logo is clearly readable; the mug's graphic is out of focus.

Security firm Claroc says that of 37,571 Grok Build apps it found online, 35,578, or 94.7% by its count, opened for anyone with no sign-in. It says 24 of the open apps were built by staff at X and SpaceXSI, which Claroc calls "the company formerly called xAI" and Ars Technica calls "the now-merged SpaceX and xAI." Those 24 have since been taken down.

Claroc says app addresses were findable through passive DNS. SpaceXSI says apps are private until their creator chooses to share them. As of Claroc's and Ars Technica's Nov. 10 reports, most other users' open apps were still reachable.

At a glance

Item Detail Source/status
Apps online when tested 37,571 Claroc
Opened with no sign-in 35,578 (94.7%) Claroc
Built by SpaceXSI and X staff 24 open apps; taken down after the reports Claroc; Ars
What most held Games, landing pages, calculators; about 1 in 10 sensitive Claroc estimate
Default access Disputed Claroc's tests vs. SpaceXSI and Cursor statements

What Claroc says it found

Grok Build turns chat descriptions into published web apps. Claroc says it tried 43,551 Grok app addresses and found 37,571 still online. Only 1,993 returned the HTTP 401 error that Claroc says signals a restricted app. Claroc's methods section says its discovery step listed 43,601 names, the same figure Ars Technica gives for the passive DNS search Claroc's Asaf Aprozper described to it.

Claroc says most of the open apps were games, landing pages and calculators. About 1 in 10 held sensitive material, and by Claroc's estimate roughly 2% held material serious enough to rate high or critical.

Claroc lists, among the 24 staff apps, "a confidential onboarding plan, a sales territory map of 594 accounts and advertising proposals." It says 30 other identifiable organizations, including six Fortune 500 companies, had internal data in open apps; it names none.

On test apps Claroc built with made-up data, it says a team-login flaw let an uninvited account read, change and delete records. Claroc says it did not sign in to or write to anyone else's app.

How the addresses could be found

Claroc says each published Grok app gets its own address, and that when intended visitors open an app, the name can end up in passive DNS records, so addresses nobody would guess still get listed. It contrasts that with Claude's published artifacts and shared chats from ChatGPT and Gemini, where "the secret part of each link sits in the path, so DNS never sees it."

The dispute over the default setting

In the paid account Claroc used, the access step offered Anyone with the link, Invited users and Only you, with Anyone with the link preselected. SpaceXSI, answering a reporter's questions as described by Claroc, said apps are private until their creator chooses to share them and that employee accounts default to Only you. A representative of Cursor, which Ars describes as "the AI coding service SpaceXSI recently acquired," told Ars that Grok Build "apps are private by default and nothing goes public unless the creator chooses to share it." Ars writes that Aprozper's tests contradict that statement.

Claroc and SpaceXSI agree nothing goes public until the builder clicks Publish; the access option shown at that step is what is disputed. An illustration of the publish screen in SpaceXSI's own Grok Build announcement shows the access field set to "Anyone with the link," though an illustration does not establish the default.

Takedowns and what builders can do

Claroc says it reported the issue to SpaceXSI on Nov. 8, reported more staff apps on Nov. 9 and had no reply to its report by Nov. 10, and that SpaceXSI took the 24 staff apps down after its report. Ars says SpaceXSI began removing them within a few hours of Ars emailing questions; when Ars published, all 24 returned an "app not found" error. Claroc says SpaceXSI has not done the same for other users' apps.

Claroc, which sells security tools for AI-built apps, advises builders to check each published app's access setting, set anything internal to Invited users or Only you, test from a signed-out browser, keep passwords out of app code and unpublish apps nobody owns.

What to watch

Claroc says it is notifying affected organizations itself; Ars says the Cursor representative did not answer whether SpaceXSI planned to notify other users. Also open: any SpaceXSI change to the publish step or app addresses. Neither report offers evidence on whether any exposed data was misused.

How we reported this

DailyMech read Claroc's Nov. 10 research post, Ars Technica's Nov. 10 report and SpaceXSI's Grok Build announcement in full. All counts are Claroc's and were not independently verified. DailyMech did not open any grok.me app or recheck which apps remain open, omits names, addresses and personal details, and contacted no one.

Published and fact-checked November 11, 2026.

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DailyMech used AI tools to help research and draft this article; it was fact-checked by our editors.

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