39 Million Secrets Leaked on GitHub in 2024

GitHub found 39M secrets leaked in 2024 and launched new tools to help developers and organizations secure sensitive data in code.

Microsoft-owned code hosting platform GitHub announced the discovery of 39 million secrets leaked in 2024. The exposure of this sensitive information poses a serious risk to organizations, as malicious actors are ready to exploit it in attacks. Developers frequently expose secrets like API keys, often underestimating the risk. Attackers exploit even “low-risk” leaks for lateral movement. Storing secrets in git history increases vulnerability, and accidental public exposures hit record highs in 2024.

“To give you an idea of the scope of the problem, more than 39 million secrets were leaked across GitHub in 2024 alone. Every minute GitHub blocks several secrets with push protection.” reads the report published by GitHub. “Still, secret leaks remain one of the most common—and preventable—causes of security incidents. As we develop code faster than ever previously imaginable, we’re leaking secrets faster than ever, too.”

The company launched new tools to help developers and organizations secure sensitive data in their code.

GitHub launches new Advanced Security features, including standalone Secret Protection and Code Security, support for GitHub Team orgs, and free secret scanning. Secret Protection is free for public repositories.

The company now offers standalone security add-ons for Team organizations, eliminating the need for Enterprise upgrades. To prevent leaks, GitHub enables Team and Enterprise users to run secret risk assessments across all repositories, enhancing security.

Secret Protection is free for public repositories. The company states that identifying exposed secrets is crucial.

“The secret risk assessment is a point-in-time scan leveraging our scanning engine for organizations, covering all repositories–public, private, internal, and even archived–and can be run without purchase. The point-in-time scan provides clear insights into the exposure of your secrets across your organization, along with actionable steps to strengthen your security and protect your code.” concludes the report. “In order to lower barriers for organizations to use and benefit from the feature, no specific secrets are stored or shared.” GitHub notes.

GitHub Advanced Security introduces major updates to enhance secret protection and code security. Now available as standalone products, these tools no longer require a full GitHub Advanced Security license, making them more accessible to smaller teams.

GitHub has also enhanced push protection with delegated bypass controls, allowing organizations to define who can override security measures, adding policy-level enforcement. AI-powered secret detection using GitHub Copilot improves accuracy by identifying unstructured secrets like passwords, reducing false positives.

To further strengthen security, GitHub has partnered with cloud providers like AWS, Google Cloud, and OpenAI to improve secret detection and response times.

The Microsoft-owned company also recommends best practices such as enabling Push Protection, eliminating hardcoded secrets, and using secret managers, environment variables, or CI/CD-integrated tools to reduce human error and exposure risks.

These updates aim to make security more accessible and improve secret management across repositories.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, secure coding)

At a gathering of foreign ministers of the NATO alliance in Belgium, officials tells Kyiv Post that Russia is looking to link any ceasefire agreement to a broader geopolitical realignment.

The drone assault on Kyiv was part of a broader wave of Russian strikes. Earlier in the night, drones hit Kharkiv, where officials reported at least four people dead and 32 injured.

HONG KONG — Asian shares slid further Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs sent shudders through Wall Street at a level of shock unseen since the COVID-19 pandemic pummeled world markets in 2020.

Everything from crude oil to Big Tech stocks to the value of the U.S. dollar against other currencies has fallen. Even gold, a traditional safe haven that recently hit record highs, pulled lower after Trump announced his “Liberation Day” set of tariffs, which economists say carries the risk of a potentially toxic mix of weakening economic growth and higher inflation.

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Read More: ‘Inflation Day Rather Than Liberation Day’: How the World Is Reacting to Trump’s Latest Tariffs

Markets in Shanghai, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Indonesia were closed for holidays, limiting the scope of Friday’s sell-offs in Asia.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 lost 4.3% to 33,263.58, while South Korea’s Kospi sank 1.8% to 2,441.86.

The two U.S. allies said they were focused on negotiating lower tariffs with Trump’s administration.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dropped 2.2% to 7,684.30.

In other trading early Friday, the U.S. dollar fell to 145.39 Japanese yen from 146.06. The yen is often used as a refuge in uncertain times, while Trump’s policies are meant in part to weaken the dollar to make goods made in the U.S. more price competitive overseas. The euro gained to $1.1095 from $1.1055.

Trump announced a minimum tariff of 10% on global imports, with the tax rate running much higher on products from certain countries like China and those from the European Union. Smaller, poorer countries in Asia were slapped with tariffs as high as 49%.

Read More: Congress Is Freaking Out About Trump’s Trade War—but Not Enough to Stop Him

It’s “plausible” the tariffs altogether, which would rival levels unseen in more than a century, could knock down U.S. economic growth by 2 percentage points this year and raise inflation close to 5%, according to UBS.

That’s such a big hit it “makes one’s rational mind regard the possibility of them sticking as low,” according to Bhanu Baweja and other strategists at UBS.

Trump has previously said tariffs could cause “a little disturbance” in the economy and markets. On Thursday he downplayed the impact.

“The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom and the country is going to boom,” Trump said as he left the White House to fly to Florida.

Read More: Is the U.S. Heading Into a Recession? Tariffs Fallout Sparks Fresh Fears

The S&P 500 sank 4.8% to 5,396.52 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 4% to 40,545.93. The Nasdaq composite tumbled 6% to 16,550.61.

Some of the worst hits walloped smaller U.S. companies, and the Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks dropped 6.6% to pull more than 20% below its record.

Four of every five that make up the S&P 500 declined.

Best Buy fell 17.8% because the electronics that it sells are made all over the world. United Airlines lost 15.6% because customers worried about the global economy may not fly as much for business or feel comfortable enough to take vacations. Target tumbled 10.9% amid worries that its customers, already squeezed by still-high inflation, may be under even more stress.

Read More: How Trump’s Tariffs Will Impact U.S. Consumers

Investors knew Trump was going to announce sweeping new tariffs, and fears surrounding it had already pulled Wall Street’s main measure of health, the S&P 500 index, 10% below its all-time high.

Some analysts and investors believed Trump might use tariffs simply as a tool for negotiations, rather than as a long-term policy. But he indicated Wednesday that he sees them as a way to bring factory jobs back to the United States, which could take years.

The Federal Reserve could cut interest rates to support the economy, but lower rates can push up inflation, already a worry given that U.S. households are bracing for sharp increases to their bills due to the tariffs.

Read More: The U.S. Has a Long History of Tariffs. Here’s How Trump’s Compare

Yields on Treasurys tumbled in part on rising expectations for coming cuts to rates, along with general fear about the health of the U.S. economy. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.04% from 4.20% late Wednesday and from roughly 4.80% in January.

A report Thursday said fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, better than economists were expecting. A separate report said activity for U.S. transportation, finance and other businesses in the services industry grew last month, but by less than forecast.

Also early Friday, U.S. benchmark crude oil shed 70 cents to $66.25 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, was down 64 cents at $69.50 a barrel.

—AP writers Stan Choe, Matt Ott and Darlene Superville contributed.

Russia has stepped up aerial attacks even as US President Donald Trump pushes Kyiv and Moscow to agree to a ceasefire after more than three years of costly fighting.

Laura Loomer, a right-wing personality known for her incendiary social media presence, appeared to have been sidelined at points by Donald Trump’s campaign and then by his administration.

But she has long had the president’s ear and may have it again, at least for now.

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In an Oval Office meeting on Wednesday, the conservative activist urged Trump to fire National Security Council officials, as the team struggles to answer questions not only on why they were using Signal, a publicly available encrypted app, to discuss a military operation in Yemen, but how a journalist was mistakenly added to the group chat. Trump followed suit, people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

It was the latest sign of Loomer’s influence, even as she has faced criticism for entertaining 9/11 conspiracy theories and her history of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim posts. Loomer, who is prolific on social media, has been tearing into some of Trump’s allies and advisers, calling out what she calls a “vetting crisis” within the White House and implying members of his team are trying to subvert his agenda.

Trump has long praised Loomer while distancing himself at times from her most controversial comments.

Here’s what to know about Loomer and what both she and Trump said about the latest incident.

How did she get close to Trump?

Loomer, 31, has been involved in politics as an advocate of Trump. She twice unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2020 and 2022 in South Florida and had been known for staging protests including handcuffing herself to a Twitter office after the service banned her and jumping a fence at a home owned by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She says she was invited to Mar-a-Lago after leading attacks against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was preparing to challenge Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential primary.

Last year, Loomer accompanied Trump on his 9/11 travels in New York and Pennsylvania and was also seen walking out of the plane the previous day after Trump landed in Philadelphia to debate his electoral opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Loomer said she was invited those days as a guest.

Loomer said she never officially joined the campaign after Trump’s allies preferred he would keep his distance.

What makes her an influential figure?

Loomer has been banned from numerous social media platforms, including Facebook. She posted during last year’s presidential campaign that if Harris beat Trump, “the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center.” Harris was the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president.

In December she publicly sparred with billionaire adviser Elon Musk, a native of South Africa, over their opposing positions on the use of skilled migration visas.

The conservative activist says such visas go against the “America First” agenda. Her account on X, a social media platform owned by Musk, was temporarily suspended, and for some time following the feud, she said she lost access to other paid features.

Earlier this month, Trump ended Secret Service protection details assigned to Democrat Joe Biden’s adult children following a report from Loomer with photos showing Hunter Biden’s protective detail while in South Africa.

What is she known for?

Loomer has a podcast called “Loomer Unleashed” on Rumble, a platform known for streaming far-right figures. Her last name has been coined as a verb that people on both sides of the political aisle use for when politicians, officials, or other figures are publicly shamed.

The influencer frequently makes anti-Islam and anti-immigrant posts on social media and made vile racist and sexist attacks against Harris. She once shared a video on X that said “9/11 was an Inside Job!”

The conspiracy theory that U.S. officials are hiding information about the Sept. 11 attacks or were somehow involved in the planning has taken hold among a segment of determined “truthers,” but many of their most prevalent claims have fallen apart upon further scrutiny.

What happened with Loomer this week?

People speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters say Loomer met with Trump, Vice President JD Vance, chief of staff Susie Wiles, national security adviser Mike Waltz and Sergio Gor, director of the Presidential Personnel Office and presented “research findings.”

When reached for comment, Loomer referred The Associated Press to an X post shared earlier on Thursday, saying she was not going to divulge any details about her Oval Office meeting with Trump “out of respect” for the president.

“I will continue working hard to support his agenda, and I will continue reiterating the importance of, and the necessity of STRONG VETTING, for the sake of protecting the President of the United States of America, and our national security,” Loomer said.

In a post later Thursday on X, Loomer appeared to take credit for the firings, writing, “You know how you know the NSC officials I reported to President Trump are disloyal people who have played a role in sabotaging Donald Trump?” She then noted that “the fired officials” were being defended by Trump critics on CNN and MSNBC.

Loomer has been critical of Waltz and his own vetting process. In the lead up to the meeting, she complained to sympathetic administration officials that he relied too much on “neocons,” or neoconservatives within the GOP and “not-MAGA-enough” types.

Loomer has attacked principal deputy national security adviser Alex Wong, who was Waltz’ aide taking the lead in assembling the team based on the conversation shared by journalist Jeffrey Goldberg.

What has Trump said about her?

During last year’s election after her racist posts about Harris, Trump said, “Laura’s been a supporter of mine” and that she had “strong opinions,” but denied knowledge of her comments. He would later post on his Truth Social account that he disagreed with her comments.

Trump denied on Thursday that Loomer had anything to do with aides being ousted from their jobs at the National Security Council, calling her a “very good patriot and a very strong person.”

Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he made his way to Miami that she only made recommendations.

“Sometimes I listen to those recommendations, like I do with everybody,” Trump said, adding: “She’s usually very constructive. She recommended certain people for jobs.”

—Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Associated Press writer Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.

An exclusive report on the first day of the NATO foreign ministers meeting in Belgium.

As a result of 271 auctions, more than 20,000 hectares of state-owned land were leased to Ukrainian farmers with the launch of the “Land Bank” project.

Just under a year ago, Yoon Suk-yeol was serenading guests at a White House state dinner with a rendition of Don McLean’s “American Pie.” On Friday, South Korea’s former President was forced to eat the humble variety after his impeachment over an earlier martial law declaration was unanimously confirmed by the nation’s Constitutional Court. Yoon is the first President in South Korean history to be detained on criminal charges while still in office.

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In delivering the verdict, acting Chief Justice Moon Hyung-bae said Yoon “violated his duty as the nation’s commander-in-chief” when he sent troops to the National Assembly in December. In response, Yoon’s People Power Party (PPP) said it “humbly” accepted the decision.

What appeared to many outsiders like an open-and-shut case dragged on for 15 weeks—the longest ever deliberation in a country with a remarkable record of presidential impeachments—amid mass protests and a political inertia that has proven especially debilitating as U.S. President Donald Trump launches a worldwide trade war.

On Thursday, Washington imposed 25% tariffs on South Korean exports to the U.S., prompting acting President Han Duck-soo to vow an “all-out” response. Last year, South Korea exported cars worth $34.74 billion to the U.S., accounting for 49% of all its auto exports. The country must now hold an election within 60 days, and diffusing trade tensions will no doubt be top of the new leader’s in-tray.

How Asia’s fourth-largest economy got to this point still has many scratching their heads. On Dec. 3, President Yoon declared martial law, calling the opposition-controlled National Assembly a “monster” that was infiltrated by anti-state elements allied to North Korea and had “paralyzed” his government. The move sparked turmoil as 190 out of a total of 300 lawmakers battled through cordons of special forces to enter parliament and vote to repeal the declaration just six hours later. In the streets outside, tens of thousands of ordinary South Koreans demanded Yoon’s resignation. Although Yoon’s PPP blocked the parliament’s first impeachment attempt, a second on Dec. 14 was successful.

To this day, Koreans still aren’t sure what Yoon was trying to achieve. A self-styled populist, the former prosecutor general had been struggling to enact his agenda owing to a minority government that made it difficult to push through legislation including a budget. His already precarious position was rendered shakier still by a relentless series of scandals engulfing his wife, first lady Kim Keon-hee, including allegedly accepting a luxury Dior handbag as a gift and stock manipulation.

Then, in September, accusations broke that Myung Tae-kyun, a political broker who ran a polling company, had forged deals with Yoon, his wife, and party colleagues to allegedly publish unverified polls and unlawfully influence elections. The allegations echoed the earlier influence-peddling scandal surrounding disgraced former President Park Geun-hye, which led to nationwide protests in 2017 and the impeachment of South Korea’s first female President. Although Yoon steadfastly denies any impropriety, mass protests erupted to demand accountability and his ouster.

The embattled Yoon then sprung the ultimate political Hail Mary: an autogolpe, or self-coup, to seize power he ostensibly already wielded by imposing martial law. After that gambit failed, the authorities first attempted to detain him on Jan. 3 but aborted when he refused to leave his fortified residence ringed by armed guards. He finally surrendered on Jan. 15 when prosecutors visited again with even more police officers. But he was released from detention on March 8 and appeared defiant to supporters, saying through his lawyers that he “appreciates the courage and decision by the Seoul Central District Court to correct illegality.”

The entire episode was simply bizarre to outsiders to whom South Korea embodies democratic values and technological prowess—not to mention zeitgeist-defining cultural exports from K-pop to Squid Game—when compared to the Stalinist North. But to a young democracy that had only thrown off the shackles of military rule in 1987, it was a harrowing reminder of a not so distant era of state violence, shattering the illusion that political freedoms were beyond jeopardy.

Then again, Koreans can take solace that checks and balances did ultimately carry the day. Parliament swiftly lifted martial law, and law enforcement institutions including military, police, and security services avoided potential bloodshed by exercising restraint despite tense stand-offs. Although the initial inability of the national anti-corruption bureau to arrest Yoon was widely criticized, it could with some justification point to the bigger goal of avoiding an escalation and widespread casualties. Lastly, the Constitutional Court deliberated at length and came to its decision—even if a large section of the nation of 50 million disagrees with it as evidenced by the crowds thronging Seoul’s streets.

“A lot of the young male voters who are demonstrating feel their interests are at stake,” says Naomi Chi, a professor focusing on the Korean Peninsula at Hokkaido University.

How the country now heals is another matter. Yoon came to power by a gossamer-thin margin in part by weaponizing anti­feminist rhetoric to gain support from disenfranchised young men, even vowing at the stump to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality (he didn’t.) South Koreans aged 18-30 face some of the worst relative poverty rates among OECD countries and the perception among young men is that 18-month compulsory national service puts them at a marked disadvantage to their female peers, who are exempt. While Yoon’s failure to deliver noticeable economic gains estranged this cohort, the manner of his removal still enrages his base, which has been galvanized by the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories on right-wing blogs and social media.

South Korea’s likely next President is Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung, who Yoon defeated by less than 1% in 2022 and who led the impeachment charge. When martial law was first imposed, Lee livestreamed himself climbing the National Assembly fence to bypass the military blockade on his YouTube channel. Lee, who was stabbed in the neck by a political opponent in January 2024, had his path to the nation’s top job cleared when a conviction of violating South Korea’s election law that barred him from public office for five years was overturned by a higher court on March 26.

“When Lee stood in the presidential election last time, there were a lot of objectors,” says Youngmi Kim, a senior lecturer in the department of Asian studies at Edinburgh University. “But now I think his support is broader than ever before.”

Political paralysis is a problem anytime but doubly so when tensions are raised on the peninsula. In recent months, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has deployed troops to aid Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war of choice in Ukraine while also ramping up missile tests. 

“It’s a dangerous situation,” says Chi. “With this chaos they’re not able to have any dialog with Trump and they don’t have any dialog with Japan. Korea must straighten things out soon for regional stability.”

But elections alone are no panacea. Since democratization, South Korean politics have been ideologically divided largely along Cold War lines, with the conservatives lauding the achievements of the former military regime and accusing their detractors of being pro-Pyongyang. Their progressive opponents, meanwhile, accuse the conservatives of being anti-democratic and riding roughshod over human-rights. 

With little commonality between the two factions, politics has metastasized into a winner-takes-all where, ultimately, both sides lose. Since democratization, four South Korean Presidents have been imprisoned, one committed suicide amid a corruption investigation, and three have been impeached.

“There are growing calls that the 1987 constitution is no longer fit for purpose,” Danielle Chubb, an associate professor of international relations at Deakin University, told La Trobe University’s Asia Rising podcast. “Depending on how all this plays out, we might in six months have a moment of opportunity to have … democratic reform in South Korea.”

(NewsNation) — A Michigan couple that had been held at a Mexican prison for a month over a timeshare dispute with a resort company was released Thursday.

Paul and Christy Akeo were freed from a maximum-security facility one day after a Michigan congressman, Republican Tom Barrett, visited the couple and publicized their plight.

The Akeos had been arrested in Cancún on March 4 after a high-end resort company accused the Spring Arbor couple of fraud. Advocates for the Akeos said the credit card dispute that entangled them did not merit the harsh conditions they experienced behind bars.

“They are in the plane right now,” on a chartered flight to Michigan, U.S. hostage negotiator Adam Boehler told Reuters on Thursday evening.

They were accompanied by Barrett.

Video from the congressman’s office showed the Akeos, in prison garb, exiting the prison and boarding a private jet to Lansing, Mich. Family members were expected to receive them at midnight or 1 a.m. local time, said Mallory Wilson, a friend of the Akeo family.

“It’s been a day,” Wilson told “Banfield” on Thursday evening. “I’m elated to share that they’re finally coming home, and I think I had a little stroke when I saw Christy’s name come up on my phone.”

Dick Atkins, an attorney who specializes in foreign legal matters, said the problems the Akeos experienced are rare. More than 36 million U.S. residents go to Mexico each year, and only a small number, fewer than 500, are arrested, he said.

“I have a feeling that hotels, after this, will be more careful because there’s no doubt they’re going to lose business because of this,” Atkins said.