Vercel - a cloud computing platform for programmers, specializing in providing web application deployment and operation services based in the United States, has confirmed a data leak, raising concerns about the trend of supply chain attacks through third-party artificial intelligence (AI) tools.
Although only a few customers are affected, the incident shows the increasing sophistication of cyberattacks in the AI era.
According to Vercel, hackers have taken advantage of a vulnerability in an external AI tool called Context AI to infiltrate the internal system.
The starting point is the Google Workspace account of an employee who was taken over, from which the attacker expanded access to the Vercel environment.
Notably, hackers have taken advantage of system settings that are not considered sensitive data to access and obtain information. While important data is often encrypted, system configuration information that is not labeled as secure becomes a weakness, helping attackers collect more information.
A company representative said that this is a vulnerability in the configuration, not a bug in the core encryption system.
Vercel is the unit behind Next.js, a popular open source toolkit developed based on the React library, which helps build websites and web applications faster and more efficiently.
This platform provides serverless infrastructure, frontier computing and CI/CD processes for millions of programmers.
Therefore, any incident can have a widespread impact on the software development ecosystem.
CEO of Vercel - Guillermo Rauch said the attack group is highly skilled and may have been supported by AI.
They are acting at an incredible speed and understand our system deeply," Guillermo Rauch wrote on social network X.
The company has mobilized experts to respond to the incident, and at the same time notified law enforcement agencies.
After the incident, Vercel quickly implemented enhanced security measures, including improving environmental variable management control panels and recommending customers review sensitive data. The company also affirmed that core services and open source projects are still safe.
The incident took place in the context of open source AI projects continuously becoming targets of attack.
Software tools like LiteLLM or Trivy have also recorded similar incidents, showing a new trend when hackers do not directly attack businesses but target the chain of tools they depend on.
Another notable development is that the ShinyHunters hacker group has claimed responsibility and advertised the stolen data for sale.
According to reports, this group claimed ownership of the API key, source code and internal data, and offered a ransom of up to 2 million USD. However, there has been no official confirmation of this group's role in the case to date.
Experts warn that as AI is increasingly deeply integrated into the software development process, security boundaries are also becoming more complex.
Third-party tools, which are used to increase productivity, can unintentionally become "gateways" to attacks if not tightly controlled.
The Vercel incident is a reminder that security is not only in the main system, but also in the entire chain of related tools. In the AI era, just one weak link is enough to create risks for the entire ecosystem.
