The key facts

  • The attackers gained access to Fireworks' development system through its cloud provider
  • Notion disconnected its systems from Fireworks on November 3 and deleted the data stored there
  • Transcripts of chats from the 'Insights' feature were stolen; a significant portion of the data cannot be attributed to specific customers

What happened

Fireworks AI has confirmed a cyberattack that affected the data of some of its customers. Fireworks is a platform through which developers gain access to open AI models; it is used by tens of thousands of customers worldwide, including the legal company Harvey and the creator of the code editor Cursor. As TechCrunch reported, citing the company's latest security notice, the attackers breached Fireworks' cloud provider, gained access to its development system, and stole customers' billing data and part of its datasets.

Affected customers

At least one confirmed affected customer is the notes and documents service Notion. In its disclosure, the company said that the incident affected about 1% of its own customers. Notion said that Fireworks itself notified it of the incident and later confirmed the theft of some of Notion's customer data. On November 3, Notion disconnected its systems from Fireworks, deleted the data stored there, and completely cut off communication between the two services.

What exactly was stolen from Notion

This week, Notion confirmed that hackers stole transcripts of chats from Notion AI customers who used the 'Insights' feature. According to the company, such transcripts include 'any input to the model or output from it recorded in the chat.' At the same time, as noted in the disclosure, a significant portion of the data cannot be attributed — it is impossible to determine which specific customer it belonged to.

Motives and context

Fireworks believes the attackers are pursuing financial goals: their aim is to sell tokens obtained through access to large language models. Such schemes involve reselling access to third parties who use up AI model resources without using their own. The incident shows how technology companies' dependence on third-party providers means that an attack on one of them affects the customers of other services. According to TechCrunch, this is the second breach of Fireworks in two months: earlier, the company reported a security incident in October.