GitGuardian Finds 31,088 Claude Code Secrets Exposed, With 5,343 Still Valid
Updated
Updated · InfoWorld · Nov 11
GitGuardian Finds 31,088 Claude Code Secrets Exposed, With 5,343 Still Valid
3 articles · Updated · InfoWorld · Nov 11
Summary
31,088 distinct secrets were found in Claude Code’s .claude/settings.local.json files across 23,276 public GitHub repositories, and GitGuardian said 5,343 were still valid when detected.
The exposure stems from Claude Code’s “Yes, and don’t ask again” approval flow, which saves full command strings—including embedded API keys, passwords and tokens—into a project-level config file that can later be committed.
67% of the settings-file secrets GitGuardian could validate were working credentials, led by 2,280 database identifiers, while conventional secret scanners can miss many command-line and environment-variable leaks.
613 more secrets appeared in public Docker Hub images across 543 repositories and 7,625 tags because Docker copies can ignore Git exclusions; 99 were valid, and one Cloudflare token spread across 559 tags.
Anthropic’s Claude Code lead Boris Cherny acknowledged the issue and said the company is exploring safeguards including built-in secret scanning, while GitGuardian urged credential rotation and checks of already published images.