Z.ai Silently Uploaded Users' Code to the Cloud Without Consent

Chinese AI company Z.ai disabled the Codebase Indexing feature of its coding assistant ZCode on September 21, 2026, which had been encrypting and uploading local repositories to Alibaba Cloud OSS without user consent.

Compiled by Sergey KostenchukPublished 2026-09-23Updated 2026-09-23

2026-09-23 Safety Anthropic

🛡 Z.ai Silently Uploaded Users' Code to the Cloud

The ZCode assistant's Codebase Indexing feature, enabled by default, packaged the working environment (.git history, LFS caches, reflog, configs), encrypted it with a Z.ai key, and sent it to Alibaba Cloud OSS. The issue was found by blogger Ferstar; the company apologized, disabled the feature, and ordered an audit.

🌍 The threat is not in the model, but in the access architecture: a tool with file access silently leaked proprietary code and credentials to a third-party cloud. "Local" AI tools are not secure by default.

👤 Check indexing and telemetry settings in AI assistants (ZCode, Copilot, Claude Code) and look for zero-data retention. ZCode code is open: github.com/zai-org/ZCode.

Source 1: https://tech.yahoo.com/cybersecurity/articles/chinas-z-ai-disables-ai-143912200.html Source 2: https://www.infoworld.com/article/4225022/z-ai-disables-coding-assistant-feature-after-flaw-exposed-enterprise-code-upload-risk.html

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