AI vendor breach: the Fireworks AI incident exposed Notion AI chats
Your employees may use Notion AI to summarize a meeting or draft a proposal. What they don’t know is that Notion had some of those conversations processed by another vendor, Fireworks AI. And Fireworks AI was breached.
This AI vendor breach was confirmed this week: Notion says transcripts of Notion AI conversations tied to its Insights feature were affected, for fewer than 1% of its workspaces. The case shows a reality few small businesses keep in mind: your AI data often travels much further than the tool you chose.
Two companies, two timelines
The facts below come from the notices published by Fireworks AI and Notion, as reported by The Hacker News, BleepingComputer and TechCrunch.
According to Fireworks, the attackers are financially motivated and aim to resell access to large language models, a practice called "LLMjacking": the victim pays the usage bill while others consume it.
AI vendor breach: a chain of vendors you can’t see
Who touches your AI conversations?
Your business
Your employees type into the AI assistant in their work tool.
Your vendor (here, Notion)
It chooses which subprocessors handle your requests and data.
Your vendor’s AI vendor (here, Fireworks AI)
It runs the models and, for some features, keeps data.
Fireworks’ cloud provider
That’s how the attacker got in on October 23, according to Fireworks.
You signed with the first layer only. The incident happened at the fourth.
🔎 "Zero data retention": read the fine print
Notion says Fireworks had contractually committed to keeping no Notion data. Fireworks’ documentation, cited by VentureBeat, notes that some features do store content, such as batch jobs and training. Before trusting a "no retention" promise, ask which features it covers, and which ones are left out.
What your employees paste into AI matters
Notion advises affected customers to treat this data as exposed and to rotate any password, API key or other credential pasted into Notion AI during the period in question. The best time to think about it is before. A fictional example:
The same request, before and after one simple rule
❌ Before: everything pasted as is
| Item | Request content |
|---|---|
| Client | Request: summarize the meeting with Tremblay Management Inc. (Laval) |
| Contact | Marie Tremblay, 514-555-0147, marie@tremblay.example |
| Access | Client portal password: Winter2026! |
| Finances | Target margin: 18%, max budget $42,000 |
✅ After: the AI has what it needs to summarize, nothing more
| Item | Request content |
|---|---|
| Client | Request: summarize the meeting with client A (property management sector) |
| Contact | [removed] |
| Access | [never in a request: password manager] |
| Finances | Margin and budget: [removed, to add in the final document] |
Names, contact details and figures can be added afterwards in the final document, outside the AI tool.
Five questions to ask the vendors of your AI-powered tools
| Question | What you’re looking for | Red flag |
|---|---|---|
| Which AI subprocessors handle our data? | A public, up-to-date list of subprocessors | "That’s confidential" or no list |
| Are our requests retained, and by whom? | A specific retention period, per feature | A blanket promise with no named exceptions |
| Where is the data processed? | A named country or region, ideally Canada | No information on location |
| Can I turn off features that keep conversations? | A clear admin setting | An option only for large accounts, with no alternative |
| How will we be notified of an incident? | A specific timeframe and contact | "We’ll post a notice on our website" |
Quebec’s Law 25 expects you to know where the personal information you hand to a third party goes. We covered the same vendor issue with the Crime Stoppers leak at Navigate360, and the risk of stolen AI API keys. If you use Copilot, see also our guide Microsoft 365 Copilot for small businesses.
How NeoTech can help
For our managed IT services clients, we list the AI tools actually used in the company, write a one-page usage rule with you and configure privacy settings in Microsoft 365. Our clients also get automated 24/7 monitoring with on-call technician intervention for unusual sign-ins to cloud accounts.
Book your free cyber check
In 30 minutes, we review the AI tools used at your company, what your employees put into them and the vendors that process that data.
Call us at 438-476-2322 or email info@neotechcloudsolutions.com.
Our office: 2572 boul. Daniel-Johnson, office 237, Laval.
Sources
- Notion — Fireworks AI incident (updated Nov. 12, 2026)
- The Hacker News — Fireworks AI Confirms Wider Breach Affecting Customer Datasets, Model Weights and Notion AI Chats
- BleepingComputer — Notion says Fireworks breach exposed customer AI chat transcripts
- TechCrunch — Cyberattack on Fireworks AI allowed hackers to access Notion customers’ chat transcripts
- VentureBeat — Attackers breached the Fireworks AI storage where Notion AI chats sat outside zero data retention
Photo: panumas nikhomkhai, Pexels (Pexels licence).