OpenAI has been exposed to a security breach at Mixpanel, a data analytics vendor that the GenAI developer used to support its API frontend product. The incident highlights the growing risk around third-party integrations and the potential for customer data held by the major AI providers to be exposed.
On November 9, 2025, Mixpanel notified OpenAI that an attacker had gained unauthorized access to part of its systems and exported a dataset containing some customer information and analytics data related to the API. Mixpanel shared the affected dataset with OpenAI on November 25, the company stated in a blog post.
The breach occurred within Mixpanel’s systems and there was no unauthorized access to OpenAI’s infrastructure and systems. ChatGPT and other OpenAI products were not affected. “No chat, API requests, API usage data, passwords, credentials, API keys, payment details, or government IDs were compromised or exposed,” Open AI stated. It also confirmed that session tokens, authentication tokens, and other sensitive details for OpenAI services were not involved.
But Mixpanel’s systems had access to user profile information from platform.openai.com. According to OpenAI, the information that may have been affected included:
- Users’ name and email address
- Operating system, browser and location (city, state, country) used to access the API account
- Referring websites
- Organization or User IDs associated with the account
OpenAI has removed Mixpanel from its production services and said it is working with the company as well as other partners to gauge the scope of the incident and determine whether any further response actions are needed. It is in the process of directly notifying the organizations, admins and users that were affected by email.
“While we have found no evidence of any effect on systems or data outside Mixpanel’s environment, we continue to monitor closely for any signs of misuse,” the post stated.
The incident is a reminder that exposure of non-critical metadata can introduce security risks, and sharing identifiable customer information with third parties should be avoided. As Ron Zayas, Founder and CEO of Ironwall by Incogni, told CX Today in a recent interview:
“The smart play is to learn how to sanitize your data. You don't have to share 100 pieces of information on one of your customers with an outside company. It's stupid. Why are you sharing all that customer information?”
Enterprises often underestimate the value of metadata to attackers, as it doesn’t contain critical information like customers’ login credentials or payment details. But malicious actors use the information to create credible phishing or impersonation campaigns, which are becoming an effective way to deploy ransomware attacks through social engineering. Having a person’s real name, actual email address, location, and confirmation that they use OpenAI’s API makes malicious messages look far more convincing.
OpenAI acknowledged this in the blog post, advising its API users: