Apiiro Finds 2,539 Secrets in Public Repositories Containing Claude Code Settings
Summary
Apiiro found 2,539 secrets across 1,994 public repositories containing Claude Code settings files, including historical commits and forks. It did not test whether the credentials worked; one contacted organization confirmed its key was live.
Key points
- Apiiro reported that 1,122 public copies of Claude Code’s local settings file contained at least one secret; its broader count included older commits, forks and shared settings files.
- The findings included database passwords, Supabase service-role keys, SSH logins, GitHub, GitLab and npm tokens, and AWS keys.
- Secrets were also found in npm packages; a separate Lakera scan found credentials in 30 packages containing the settings file.
- Git’s global exclude protection can miss files created before a repository exists, files created by hand, already-tracked files and files included in packages.
- Gitleaks flagged 564 files and TruffleHog flagged 643; 215 files were missed by both scanners.
- Apiiro did not test whether credentials were valid, though one contacted organization confirmed its exposed key had been live.
- The article recommends rotating exposed credentials, checking repository history and package contents, adding project-level ignore rules, and keeping secrets out of approved commands.
Article Details
- Event Type
- Exposure of secrets in publicly accessible Claude Code settings files and npm packages.
- Impact
- Apiiro reported finding at least one secret in 1,122 public copies of Claude Code’s local settings file. Counting older commits, forks, and shared project settings files, it reported 2,539 secrets across 1,994 repositories. The secrets included database passwords, Supabase service-role keys, SSH logins, GitHub, GitLab, and npm tokens, and AWS keys. Apiiro did not test whether the credentials remained valid; one affected organization confirmed that its exposed key had been live. Lakera reported finding credentials in 30 of 428 scanned npm packages containing the settings file. The article says most of the 63 organizations Apiiro identified were software companies.
Malware
Vendors
Products
Claude CodeWhen you tell Claude Code “Yes, and don’t ask again,” it saves the approved command word for word, password included.GitHubResearchers found more than a thousand of those files on public GitHub with secrets inside.npmApiiro also counted 122 Supabase service-role keys, 43 SSH logins (some with root passwords), 42 GitHub, GitLab and npm tokens, and 23 AWS keys.