26,400 live credentials found scanning 7.25M repos on China's Gitee
Comments on “26,400 live credentials found scanning 7.25M repos on China's Gitee”
Claim-checked. Scored by all three judges, and its checkable claims were compared with the sources it cites. How far stories are checked
A researcher scanned 7,256,531 public Gitee repositories with TruffleHog and Kingfisher and found 26,400 unique credentials that authenticated against vendor APIs, with Alibaba Cloud keys the most common. The run took about a month and cost $3,097.64, covered by Modal credits. That works out to 3.64 per 1,000 repositories, versus 3.11 for GitLab and 2.39 for Bitbucket, but those earlier scans used TruffleHog alone; TruffleHog-only, Gitee falls to 1.76. Each scanner alone found about half, so detector coverage matters. Revocation of disclosed keys is unconfirmed.
Why it ranked
No. 15 of 110 with a score of 0.70. The panel rated it highest on new information (0.91) and technical depth (0.85), lowest on significance (0.65). Placed No. 15, No. 8 by score alone: the seventh Security story of the day (−0.080). The placement terms move stories; they are not part of the score.
- AI judgeJudge 2claude-haiku-5-5
- Large-scale credential exposure study with dual-scanner methodology and reproducible pipeline; strong security relevance, moderate substantiation, some disclosure-related framing and unverified revocation status.
- AI judgeJudge 3gpt-5.6-luna
- Large-scale, reproducible credential-exposure measurement with substantial methodology, operational details, comparative data, and actionable security implications. Sponsorship is disclosed but does not dominate; comparative claims are appropriately caveated.
Each judge wrote its line after answering the rubric, with the site and the author still hidden. Every answer behind this is in the table under Score.
Score
0.70total under rubric v2.3
- Significance0.65
- Reader interest0.82
- Audience breadth0.70
- Practical relevance0.72
- Substantiated0.82
- Technical depth0.85
- New information0.91
- Counts against: Promotional0.10
- Counts against: Overclaim0.22
Each judge’s answer per question (0–1), their mean and spread, and what the question adds to the score (weight × mean).
| Question | Judge 1 | Judge 2 | Judge 3 | Mean | Spread | Weight | Contribution (weight times mean) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SignificanceHow much does this change what people in tech know or can do? | 0.67 | 0.50 | 0.78 | 0.65 | 0.28 | +0.24 | +0.156 |
| Reader interestWould a well-informed senior engineer or tech founder want to read this today, and likely pass it on? | 0.72 | 0.80 | 0.93 | 0.82 | 0.21 | +0.26 | +0.212 |
| Audience breadthHow many people who build technology does it concern? | 0.75 | 0.67 | 0.68 | 0.70 | 0.08 | +0.13 | +0.091 |
| Practical relevanceHow useful is it to someone who builds software or tech products? | 0.68 | 0.70 | 0.78 | 0.72 | 0.10 | +0.22 | +0.159 |
| SubstantiatedHow well is it backed? Consider whether it is the primary source, and whether its main claims come with data, code, a demo, a reproducible method or citations. | 0.89 | 0.70 | 0.86 | 0.82 | 0.19 | +0.05 | +0.041 |
| Technical depthHow technically substantive is it? | 0.98 | 0.70 | 0.86 | 0.85 | 0.28 | +0.05 | +0.042 |
| New informationDoes it contain information absent from the stories covered in the last 7 days (list provided)? | 0.91 | 0.85 | 0.98 | 0.91 | 0.13 | +0.05 | +0.046 |
| PromotionalIs it mainly marketing with little substance (a press release, ad or sponsored post with no real information)? A launch post that carries real news is not promotional. | 0.06 | 0.15 | 0.08 | 0.10 | 0.09 | −0.19 | −0.018 |
| OverclaimDo the headline or conclusions claim more than the body supports? | 0.17 | 0.30 | 0.18 | 0.22 | 0.13 | −0.11 | −0.024 |
| Sum of contributions | +0.705 | ||||||
| Claim-check penalty | 0.000 | ||||||
| Total, as published | 0.705 | ||||||
Spread is the highest minus the lowest judge answer. marks a spread above 0.40: the judges disagree, and the story is marked contested.
The badge for this ranking, for the author's page or anyone's: one line of HTML, and it links back here.
<a href="https://rubric.hrih.si/editions/2026-10-29/15/"><img src="https://rubric.hrih.si/badge/2026-10-29/15.svg" alt="Ranked #15 on Rubric, 29 Oct 2026" width="245" height="28"></a>Claim check
Claim check: 2 matches source · 5 no source given · 1 couldn’t check. Each claim is compared with the source the article itself cites; a flag is published only when both checkers agree.
No source givenNumber
The researcher scanned 7,256,531 public Gitee repositories with TruffleHog and Kingfisher and found 26,400 unique verified-live credentials.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “I scanned 7,256,531 public repositories on Gitee (China's largest indigenous Git hosting platform), using both TruffleHog and Kingfisher, and found 26,400 unique verified-live credentials”
The source says No source to compare with.
Matches sourceNumber
A 2021 attempt to study credential exposure on Gitee concluded that Gitee's APIs were too limited to scale the research.
The cited source says the same thing.
The article says “A2021 attempt to study credential exposure on Gitee concluded that its APIs were too limited to scale the research”
The source says “但发现 Gitee 的 API 极为有限，曾经推出代码搜索的功能却又不知何时悄然下线，目前仅支持搜索仓库、Issue 和博客的搜索，正常用户的搜索体验都难以保障，想要挖掘私密信息更是无从下手”
Source cited by the article: chinggg.github.io/post/git-leaks
No source givenDate
Gitee was selected by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology as the country's national open-source code hosting platform.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “was selected by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology as the country's national open-source code hosting platform”
The source says No source to compare with.
No source givenNumber
The scan took roughly one month of continuous execution and cost $3,097.64, covered by a $5,000 Modal compute-credit sponsorship.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “The total cost was $3,097.64, fully absorbed by the $5,000 compute-credit sponsorship from Modal that supported this research”
The source says No source to compare with.
No source givenNumber
Alibaba Cloud AccessKey pairs were the most common leaked credential type, with roughly 1 in every 766 Gitee repositories containing a verified-live Alibaba Cloud credential.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “roughly 1 in every 766 Gitee repositories contained a verified-live Alibaba Cloud credential”
The source says No source to compare with.
No source givenNumber
In the 2025 commit year alone, 12,242 unique credentials were committed, nearly half the dataset.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “2025 alone accounts for 12,242 unique credentials, nearly half the entire dataset”
The source says No source to compare with.
Matches sourceBenchmark result
Prior scans found 6,212 verified-live credentials in about 2.6M Bitbucket repos (2.39 per 1K) and 17,430 in about 5.6M GitLab repos (3.11 per 1K), versus 3.64 per 1K for Gitee.
The cited source says the same thing.
The article says “GitLab ~5,600,000 17,430 3.11”
The source says “Public Repos Scanned | ~2.6 Million | ~5.6 Million (2.1x) | | Verified Secrets Found | 6,212 | 17,430 (2.8x”
Source cited by the article: trufflesecurity.com/blog/scanning-5-6-million-public-gitlab-repositories-for-secrets
Couldn’t checkGeneralization
Gitee has higher per-repository credential density than the published GitLab and Bitbucket scans, and Gitee is a meaningful exposure surface; the author attributes the difference partly to Kingfisher's coverage of Chinese vendors.
The source was unreachable, paywalled or too long, or the two checkers disagreed.
The article says “Gitee tops both Western platforms on raw count and per-repository density”
The source says No passage could be compared.
Source cited by the article: trufflesecurity.com/blog/scanning-5-6-million-public-gitlab-repositories-for-secrets
Also covered by
No other coverage was clustered with this story.
Elsewhere
Elsewhere: HN 29 pts, front page
Recorded for context only, checked 29 Oct 2026, 05:47 UTC. It played no part in the ranking.