There's a tendency for organizations to react to inadvertently exposing secrets in public code repositories by disabling the repo in question on GitHub, but then taking their time to rotate the exposed credentials. I guess the thinking is that well, maybe nobody noticed. And that's pure folly. From today's story:
"Ayrey said his company Truffle Security monitors GitHub and a number of other code platforms for exposed keys, and attempts to alert affected accounts to the sensitive data exposure(s). They can do easily on GitHub because the platform publishes a live feed which includes a record of all commits and changes to public code repositories. But he said cybercriminal actors also monitor these public feeds, and are often quick to pounce on API or SSH keys that get inadvertently published in code commits."
"In practical terms, it is likely that cybercrime groups or foreign adversaries also noticed the publication of these CISA secrets, the most egregious of which appears to have happened in late April 2025, Ayrey said.
“We monitor that firehose of data for keys, and we have tools to try to figure out whose they are,” he said. “We have evidence attackers monitor that firehose as well. Anyone monitoring GitHub events could be sitting on this information.”"