Access Keys Exposed: More Than 40% Are For Database Stores

This research analyzes a 30-day scan of ~150 million entities across GitHub, GitLab, and Pastebin and found ~800,000 exposed access keys and secrets—over 40% tied to database stores (129,550 database credentials, with Redis, MySQL, and MongoDB most common). The report breaks exposures into databases, cloud providers, and online services, explains the potential impacts (data exfiltration, misuse for crypto-mining, phishing), and recommends detection tools and mitigation steps.