New record The AI key heist

Bots went hunting for AI keys 2,126 times.

Most wanted: Anthropic keys. They checked 28 hiding spots, from /.env.openai to /.env.anthropic.

Edition of Saturday, Oct 10, 2026 (UTC) · see the latest · updated every 24 hours

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2,126

AI key hunts

▲ +203% vs the day before

hunters

▲ +24% vs the day before

hiding spots

▼ -18% vs the day before

2.2%

of all probes

Whose keys they want requests

Anthropic 1,447

OpenAI 580

MCP & agent configs 80

Google Gemini 19

↳ Keep your keys out of your web root.

Every edition: AI key hunts

Oct 13 Nov 11

How we measure

Requests for paths that point at an AI provider's keys or an AI agent's settings: /.env.openai, /anthropic.json, /.claude/settings.json, /mcp.json, /.cursor/mcp.json and the like. Each path is credited to the first provider whose name it contains. Counted across every site behind the NiceTryBot edge during the UTC day.

Where they looked

The paths scanners tried, most-requested first.

Path	Provider	Requests	Scanners
/.env.openai	OpenAI	458	29
/.env.anthropic	Anthropic	457	28
/.claude/settings.json	Anthropic	457	28
/.claude/settings.local.json	Anthropic	457	28
/.claude/credentials.json	Anthropic	30	2
/.openai/config	OpenAI	30	2
/openai.key	OpenAI	30	2
/.openai/credentials	OpenAI	30	2
/.claude/credentials	Anthropic	30	2
/.cursor/auth.json	MCP & agent configs	19	1
/.config/gemini/credentials.json	Google Gemini	19	1
/.continue/.env	MCP & agent configs	19	1
/.cursor/credentials.json	MCP & agent configs	19	1
/.well-known/mcp/server-card.json	MCP & agent configs	10	3
/.well-known/mcp	MCP & agent configs	10	3
/openai-proxy/config.yaml	OpenAI	7	2
/openai-proxy/config.json	OpenAI	7	2
/openai-proxy.yml	OpenAI	6	2
/openai-proxy/config.yml	OpenAI	6	2
/anthropic/config.json	Anthropic	6	2
/claude/config.json	Anthropic	6	2
/openai-proxy.yaml	OpenAI	6	2
/claude_desktop_config.json	Anthropic	2	1
/.config/claude.json	Anthropic	1	1
/.github/copilot-instructions.md	MCP & agent configs	1	1

Past editions

Nov 11 Nov 10 Nov 9 Nov 8 Nov 7 Nov 6 Nov 5 Nov 4 Nov 3 Nov 2 Nov 1 Oct 31 Oct 30 Oct 29 Oct 28 Oct 27 Oct 26 Oct 25 Oct 24 Oct 23 Oct 22 Oct 21 Oct 20 Oct 19 Oct 18 Oct 17 Oct 16 Oct 15 Oct 14 Oct 13 Oct 12 Oct 11 Oct 10 Oct 9 Oct 8 Oct 7

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