Lovable AI apps exposed sensitive data in open databases

Researchers from German security firm Crissy Field scanned 159,041 projects built with Lovable AI and found sensitive data in databases that required no login. The exposed information included passport numbers, payment details, and more than 200,000 chat messages. The researchers say missing database access rules caused the exposure, while Lovable AI says it is a known configuration issue affecting Supabase users.

What the researchers found

Crissy Field pulled the projects from the Common Crawl web archive to test what their databases would return to a stranger without credentials. Of the 34,545 projects running on Supabase, 24,664 returned database records with zero authentication required. Email addresses appeared readable on 7,403 sites across more than 10,500 tables. One service provider's database exposed over 1,000 passport records with expiration dates and nationalities. Event organizers and restaurants exposed tens of thousands of orders and tickets with emails, phone numbers, postal addresses, payment information, and ticket codes. A lifestyle forum leaked more than 200,000 chat messages and 80,000 user profiles. A property management company exposed AI-generated summaries of internal emails about tenants, property owners, and business partners. Other accessible content included tens of thousands of contracts, invoices, personal photo albums, and internal WhatsApp communications. The researchers said they used only the access each site offers to every visitor, with read-only requests and the same key the page gives to the browser.

Why the data was exposed

Crissy Field said many Lovable applications leave highly sensitive data unprotected and that an easy-to-use development platform does not remove the need for expert review of access permissions before an application handles confidential data. The vulnerabilities appear to stem from unconfigured or missing Row Level Security rules in backend databases rather than a hack of the Lovable AI platform itself. Because Lovable AI lets non-technical users create full-stack apps quickly with plain-language prompts, crucial security reviews often get skipped. Lovable AI turns a sentence typed in plain language into a working web application. Lovable AI CEO Anton Osika told CNBC this week that AI was collapsing barriers to starting a business.

Company response and wider context

Lovable AI is a Swedish AI startup founded in Stockholm in 2023. It reports more than 50 million projects already delivered and 1.2 million new ones per week. The company responded to the researchers' findings, also published in the German business daily Handelsblatt, by saying they are dealing with a known, industry-wide configuration problem around the use of Supabase. Separately, security company UpGuard examined around 300,000 domains with indications of Supabase and found tables readable from outside on 16,326 databases. According to UpGuard, more than half of these cases contained indications of personal data.

Sources: Cybernews