The AI key heist

Bots went hunting for AI keys 2,236 times.

Most wanted: Anthropic keys. They checked 135 hiding spots, from /img/asset/YXNzZXRzL2dlbWluaV9nZW5lcmF0ZWRfaW1hZ2VfaDA2MWxnaDA2MWxnaDA2MS1jb3B5LndlYnA/gemini_generated_image_h061lgh061lgh061-copy.webp to /.env.openai.

Edition of Friday, Oct 30, 2026 (UTC) · see the latest · updated every 24 hours

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2,236

AI key hunts

▲ +4.0% vs the day before

329

hunters

▲ +14% vs the day before

135

hiding spots

▼ -4.3% vs the day before

0.5%

of all probes

Whose keys they want requests

Anthropic 728

MCP & agent configs 480

OpenAI 427

Google Gemini 403

xAI 119

↳ 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
/img/asset/YXNzZXRzL2dlbWluaV9nZW5lcmF0ZWRfaW1hZ2VfaDA2MWxnaDA2MWxnaDA2MS1jb3B5LndlYnA/gemini_generated_image_h061lgh061lgh061-copy.webp	Google Gemini	271	214
/.env.openai	OpenAI	208	23
/.env.anthropic	Anthropic	177	22
/.claude/settings.local.json	Anthropic	115	34
/.claude/settings.json	Anthropic	115	34
/.cursor/mcp.json	MCP & agent configs	113	34
/.env.openai.local	OpenAI	100	1
/claude/config.json	Anthropic	100	1
/anthropic/config.json	Anthropic	100	1
/sign/a20a2ddd-49fd-4df5-864c-a0c388e62db5/a31aa77e-9493-4ec2-bc68-987cb79e6292/waiting-room/R5AbAv3WweozIIP4aOXAIzi6YELd2O87PcnVptKJ4IPvlkIm/heartbeat	xAI	78	5
/mcp	MCP & agent configs	46	17
/gemini.env	Google Gemini	39	6
/.env.gemini	Google Gemini	31	1
/.well-known/mcp	MCP & agent configs	28	9
/.mcp.json	MCP & agent configs	26	13
/.claude/CLAUDE.md	Anthropic	24	4
/.config/openai/config.json	OpenAI	24	4
/.anthropic/config.json	Anthropic	24	4
/.vscode/mcp.json	MCP & agent configs	24	12
/.cache/huggingface/token	Hugging Face	24	4
/.claude/agents	Anthropic	24	4
/mcp.json	MCP & agent configs	19	10
/.langchain/config.json	LangChain	18	2
/.huggingface/config.json	Hugging Face	18	2
/sign/a20a2ddd-49fd-4df5-864c-a0c388e62db5/a31af6f5-97c5-4b74-9382-658a552449ac/waiting-room/mzmCP0YZK8BuJpWvgw3DRou9iJ0lzJOJuGvoGXktNOIG2Yfb/heartbeat	MCP & agent configs	17	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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