New record The AI key heist

Bots went hunting for AI keys 12,823 times.

Most wanted: Anthropic keys. They checked 76 hiding spots, from /.env.openai to /.env.anthropic.

Edition of Tuesday, Oct 13, 2026 (UTC) · see the latest · updated every 24 hours

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12,823

AI key hunts

▲ +80% vs the day before

hunters

▼ -4.3% vs the day before

hiding spots

▼ -6.2% vs the day before

1.4%

of all probes

Whose keys they want requests

Anthropic 8,314

OpenAI 3,450

MCP & agent configs 436

Google Gemini 383

LangChain 126

↳ 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	3,075	45
/.env.anthropic	Anthropic	2,926	44
/.claude/settings.local.json	Anthropic	2,028	45
/.claude/settings.json	Anthropic	2,028	45
/.env.claude	Anthropic	754	1
/.config/claude/auth.json	Anthropic	123	3
/.anthropic/credentials.json	Anthropic	123	3
/.gemini/auth.json	Google Gemini	123	3
/.claude/auth.json	Anthropic	123	3
/.config/anthropic/credentials.json	Anthropic	123	3
/.config/gemini/auth.json	Google Gemini	123	3
/.config/openai/credentials.json	OpenAI	75	4
/.openai/config.json	OpenAI	75	4
/openai.json	OpenAI	75	4
/.config/openai/config.json	OpenAI	75	4
/.well-known/mcp	MCP & agent configs	75	4
/.config/openai/auth.json	OpenAI	75	4
/.well-known/mcp/server-card.json	MCP & agent configs	72	3
/mcp.json	MCP & agent configs	64	6
/langsmith.json	LangChain	63	4
/.env.langsmith	LangChain	63	4
/.codex/mcp.json	MCP & agent configs	52	4
/.gemini/mcp.json	Google Gemini	52	4
/xai.json	xAI	44	4
/.cursor/mcp.json	MCP & agent configs	33	6

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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