NEAR AI restores Cloud service after SGLang exploit exposed user data

The attacker used a remote code execution flaw in the open-source inference engine to run code on an inference server, then accessed an internal system connected to NEAR AI’s discontinued Private Chat service. Information taken included users’ names and email addresses, and, for some accounts, subscription plans and balances. NEAR AI said it found no evidence that stored Private Chat conversations or uploaded files were accessed.

Investigators also confirmed access to 18 agents running an older version of NEAR AI Agents, outside the company’s trusted execution environment (TEE). Their chat histories, settings and logs were accessed. Logs exposed Cloud API keys belonging to two customers; NEAR AI revoked both. The attacker could also have observed requests processed by the compromised server on November 8, including requests in confidential mode. The report did not say how many requests were involved.

NEAR AI suspended Cloud inference after detecting the intrusion. It later brought the service back online after applying fixes across its inference servers and replacing credentials. The company also revoked active sessions and administrative credentials, replaced agent tokens and took Private Chat offline. It said it completed a forensic review and contacted users whose accounts or agents were confirmed to have been accessed. Customers were advised to be cautious of unsolicited messages referring to their account details or balances. Regulatory notifications will follow where required.

The incident exposed a limit of confidential computing: TEEs isolate data from access outside a protected environment, but cannot prevent flaws in software running inside it. NEAR AI said it reported the vulnerability to SGLang maintainers and will expand security reviews to cover inference software, dependencies, related services and deployment configurations.

The company said NEAR Protocol and other NEAR services were unaffected. The incident report did not establish a link to a separate investigation into funds associated with the Binance hack. Elliptic said attackers used six temporary memecoins and decentralized liquidity pools to move about $430,000 in stolen cryptocurrency, including roughly 117,000 NEAR. Crypto.news said it received no response from NEAR AI before publication.