Massive Git Config Breach Exposes 15,000 Credentials; 10,000 Private Repos Cloned
Nov 01, 2024
Vulnerability / Cloud Security
Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a "massive" campaign that targets exposed Git configurations to siphon credentials, clone private repositories, and even extract cloud credentials from the source code. The activity, codenamed EMERALDWHALE , is estimated to have collected over 10,000 private repositories and stored in an Amazon S3 storage bucket belonging to a prior victim. The bucket, consisting of no less than 15,000 stolen credentials, has since been taken down by Amazon. "The stolen credentials belong to Cloud Service Providers (CSPs), Email providers, and other services," Sysdig said in a report. "Phishing and spam seem to be the primary goal of stealing the credentials." The multi-faceted criminal operation, while not sophisticated, has been found to leverage an arsenal of private tools to steal credentials as well as scrape Git config files, Laravel .env files, and raw web data. It has not been attributed to any known threat actor or grou