The Most Monitored Device in the Company is Still Hiding Dangerous Access

Summary: Developer laptops accumulate working credentials in config files, token caches, credential helpers, and tool-specific stores, and AI coding agents and MCP servers have accelerated that accumulation. GitGuardian's State of Secrets Sprawl 2026 catalogued 24,008 unique secrets in public MCP configuration files in 2025, and 64% of secrets exposed in 2022 were still valid in 2026.
What's compelling: IBM found breaches involving compromised credentials take an average of 246 days to identify and contain, and roughly 40% of the high and critical credentials GitGuardian found on developer endpoints sat in AI tool directories and log files that traditional secrets scanning misses.

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