GitBook is a document platform widely used by cryptocurrency projects. The company disclosed that it encountered a security vulnerability involving AI proxies, which allowed attackers to gain access to some infrastructure credentials. As a result, the company was forced to shut down its services and revoke customer access tokens.

In today's security disclosure, GitBook described this incident as a "complex and highly targeted attack carried out using AI proxies." The company stated that the attackers obtained unauthorized access at 7 p.m. Central European Time on November 2nd, and GitBook indicated that they immediately detected the intrusion and began to contain it.

Mentioning AI proxies is of significant importance. Unlike traditional chatbots that only answer questions, AI proxies can perform a series of operations, interact with software, and complete tasks under limited human supervision, which makes them potentially usable by attackers for certain aspects of automated cyberattacks. Some AI proxies are even capable of acting autonomously, sometimes even against their guiding principles, as proven by the experiments with OpenAI and Anthropic.

GitBook did not explain how the attackers specifically used these tools, which AI systems were involved, or how these credentials were obtained. Nor did their disclosure indicate that GitBook's own AI products had responded to this intrusion.

While ensuring the security of its infrastructure, the company has taken down applications and documentation sites that require authentication. At the same time, it has made every effort to retain publicly accessible cached copies of the documentation, so that visitors can continue to read previously saved versions of the pages even when the underlying systems are unavailable.

Another status update acknowledges that GitBook is experiencing downtime that affects its published documentation sites and editor. By Tuesday afternoon, GitBook indicated that its applications, API, and the published documentation had been restored to accessibility, although some services may still be at a reduced level during the recovery period.

What information might be exposed, and why is it important?

GitBook is essentially an online manual for software products. Cryptocurrency projects use such platforms to release technical specifications, developer guides, and tutorials to help users understand various operations, from connecting to the software to interacting with decentralized financial applications.

These documents are usually public in themselves, but the systems that maintain them may be connected to private accounts and external services. These connections rely on credentials that should be kept confidential, and GitBook indicates that some of these may have been exposed.

The investigation found that the categories potentially affected include integration tokens, Git Sync keys used to connect documents with code repositories, as well as API and token that allow software to automatically communicate with GitBook.

Cryptography projects take preventive measures

This incident has already triggered a response from the crypto industry, as document websites are often an important source of official information.

After learning about the incident, the decentralized exchange PancakeSwap temporarily closed its documentation, despite claiming that its system had not been compromised.

PancakeSwap stated in a public declaration that 'their documents have not been compromised, and [ moreover ] PancakeSwap applications are not affected.' However, out of caution, the exchange still took the decision to take the documents offline and redirected visitors to their homepage.

PancakeSwap also reminds users that their documentation does not require wallet transactions, and warns that "the documentation will never ask you to connect your wallet or approve tokens."

Subsequently, PancakeSwap announced that its documentation had been re-launched and that it had been migrated from GitBook to its own infrastructure. The existing documentation links can still be used.

GitBook Requires users to replace their digital keys

GitBook indicates that it has prevented attackers, fixed the relevant vulnerabilities, replaced its own infrastructure credentials, and rendered API token ineffective. However, customers who use GitBook to connect to other services still have work to do.

The company's guideline is first to "rotate any existing GitBook API token", which means that customers should replace the old digital access keys with newly generated ones.

GitBook also requires customers to replace the third-party API and keys used to connect external tools to their platform, including credentials related to the published integrations. Users of its Model Context Protocol (referred to as MCP) servers must re-authenticate; MCP is a system that allows AI assistants and other software tools to connect to services such as GitBook.