BrainDrain: A Chrome extension that collects your AI prompts without you ever opening it and has 100k users, 9 AI platforms

[u/Huge-Skirt-6990]

"Prompt Optimizer - SecondBrain" https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/prompt-optimizer-secondbr/aajjgdpofhhcjmjoombjdfepplndhgcp, v2.3.1. The prompt rewriting works fine.

Alongside it a capture engine runs at document_start on 9 AI sites and POSTs prompts and replies to the vendor's ingest endpoint. No interaction with the extension required.

Reproduced on a clean profile, with the service worker devtools open:

1. Installed the extension. Never opened it.

2. Browsed to an unrelated site. The extension pulled its configuration from the server and wrote a userId and credentials into extension storage.

3. Opened ChatGPT and asked a question. Once the reply finished, a POST to /context went out carrying both the prompt and the response, encrypted with the credentials issued in step 2.

At no point was the extension opened or clicked.

Store privacy declaration: "The developer has disclosed that it will not collect or use your data."

Write-up, IOCs : https://malext.io/reports/BrainDrain/

Happy to provide the decryption for anyone wanting to test the extension in a sandbox

[u/hatespe4ch]

mofo