Claude Code leaks over 1,300 secrets into public GitHub repositories

Apiiro researchers found database passwords, cloud keys and root logins sitting in Claude Code settings files committed to public repos Anthropic’s AI coding agent has been quietly writing passwords into a file that was never supposed to leave a developer’s laptop. Thousands of those files ended up on public GitHub anyway. Security researchers at Apiiro found database passwords, API tokens and root logins sitting inside Claude Code settings files embedded in public repositories. The culprit is a convenience button that turns out to be less convenient for anyone whose credentials are now visible to strangers. How a helpful shortcut became a leak Apiiro researchers Shmulik Cohen and Matan Giladi published the findings on November 5, 2026. The problem centers on how Claude Code remembers which shell commands a user has approved. When a developer picks the “Yes, and don’t ask again” option, Claude Code saves an allow rule to a file called .claude/settings.local.json. Sometimes that rule is stored as a general pattern. Often, though, the full command is saved exactly as typed. That matters because developers frequently paste credentials directly into commands. Claude Code copies the who...