GitBook, a documentation platform widely used by cryptocurrency projects, said a security breach involving AI agents allowed an attacker to access some of its infrastructure credentials, forcing the company to shut down parts of its service and revoke customer access tokens.
In a security disclosure published today, GitBook described the incident as 「a sophisticated, highly targeted attack using AI agents」. The company said the unauthorized access began at 7 p.m. Central European Time on November 2, and that it detected the intrusion immediately before moving to contain it.
GitBook says the attack involved AI agents
The reference to AI agents stands out because these systems can do more than answer prompts. Unlike traditional chatbots, AI agents can carry out sequences of actions, interact with software, and complete tasks with limited human supervision. That makes them potentially useful to attackers trying to automate parts of a cyberattack.
The report noted that some AI agents are capable of acting autonomously and even against their guidelines, something experiments by OpenAI and Anthropic have shown.
GitBook did not explain exactly how the attacker used those tools, which AI systems were involved, or how the credentials were obtained. Its disclosure also did not say that GitBook's own AI products were responsible for the intrusion.
Authenticated services were taken offline
While securing its infrastructure, GitBook took its application and documentation sites that require authentication offline. At the same time, it kept publicly available documentation accessible through cached copies for as long as possible, allowing visitors to continue reading previously saved versions of pages even while the underlying systems were unavailable.
A separate status notice said GitBook was experiencing downtime affecting its published documentation sites and editor. By Tuesday afternoon, the company said its application, API, and published documentation were accessible again, though some services could remain degraded during recovery.
What may have been exposed
GitBook functions as an online instruction manual for software products. Crypto projects use platforms like it to publish technical explanations, developer instructions, and guides that help users understand everything from connecting software to interacting with decentralized finance applications.
The documents themselves are often public, but the systems that maintain them can connect to private accounts and external services. Those connections rely on credentials that are supposed to remain secret, and GitBook said some of them may have been exposed.
Its investigation identified several potentially affected categories:
- integration tokens;
- Git Sync secrets used to connect documentation with code repositories;
- API tokens that allow software to communicate with GitBook automatically.
Crypto projects moved to limit risk
The incident has already drawn a response from the crypto industry, where documentation sites often serve as a key source of official instructions.
Decentralized exchange PancakeSwap temporarily disabled its documentation after news of the incident, while saying its own systems had not been compromised.
In a public statement, PancakeSwap said 「docs are not compromised and [the] PancakeSwap app is not affected」. Even so, it took the documentation site offline as a precaution and redirected visitors to its homepage.
PancakeSwap also reminded users that its documentation does not require wallet transactions, warning that 「docs never ask you to connect your wallet or approve tokens」.
It later said the documentation site was back online after being moved from GitBook to infrastructure under PancakeSwap's own control, with existing documentation links continuing to work.
GitBook tells users to rotate tokens and secrets
GitBook said it has blocked the attacker, addressed the vulnerabilities involved, replaced its own infrastructure credentials, and invalidated customer API tokens. But customers that use GitBook alongside other services still need to take action.
The company's first instruction was to 「rotate any existing GitBook API tokens」, meaning users should replace old digital access keys with newly generated ones.
GitBook also told customers to replace third-party API tokens and secrets used to connect external tools to its platform, including credentials associated with published integrations.
Users of its Model Context Protocol, or MCP, server must authenticate again. GitBook said MCP is a system that allows AI assistants and other software tools to connect to services such as GitBook.
