TruffleHog

Find leaked credentials.

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🔎 Now Scanning

...and more

To learn more about about TruffleHog and its features and capabilities, visit our product page.

🌐 TruffleHog Enterprise

Are you interested in continuously monitoring Git, Jira, Slack, Confluence, Microsoft Teams, Sharepoint, and more.. for credentials? We have an enterprise product that can help! Learn more at https://trufflesecurity.com/trufflehog-enterprise.

We take the revenue from the enterprise product to fund more awesome open source projects that the whole community can benefit from.

What is TruffleHog 🐽

TruffleHog is the most powerful secrets Discovery, Classification, Validation, and Analysis tool. In this context secret refers to a credential a machine uses to authenticate itself to another machine. This includes API keys, database passwords, private encryption keys, and more...

Discovery 🔍

TruffleHog can look for secrets in many places including Git, chats, wikis, logs, API testing platforms, object stores, filesystems and more

Classification 📁

TruffleHog classifies over 800 secret types, mapping them back to the specific identity they belong to. Is it an AWS secret? Stripe secret? Cloudflare secret? Postgres password? SSL Private key? Sometimes its hard to tell looking at it, so TruffleHog classifies everything it finds.

Validation ✅

For every secret TruffleHog can classify, it can also log in to confirm if that secret is live or not. This step is critical to know if there’s an active present danger or not.

Analysis 🔬

For the 20 some of the most commonly leaked out credential types, instead of sending one request to check if the secret can log in, TruffleHog can send many requests to learn everything there is to know about the secret. Who created it? What resources can it access? What permissions does it have on those resources?

📢 Join Our Community

Have questions? Feedback? Jump in slack or discord and hang out with us

Join our Slack Community

Join the Secret Scanning Discord

📺 Demo

docker run --rm -it -v "$PWD:/pwd" trufflesecurity/trufflehog:latest github --org=trufflesecurity

💾 Installation

Several options available for you:

MacOS users

brew install trufflehog

Docker:

_{Ensure Docker engine is running before executing the following commands:}

    Unix

docker run --rm -it -v "$PWD:/pwd" trufflesecurity/trufflehog:latest github --repo https://github.com/trufflesecurity/test_keys

    Windows Command Prompt

docker run --rm -it -v "%cd:/=\%:/pwd" trufflesecurity/trufflehog:latest github --repo https://github.com/trufflesecurity/test_keys

    Windows PowerShell

docker run --rm -it -v "${PWD}:/pwd" trufflesecurity/trufflehog github --repo https://github.com/trufflesecurity/test_keys

    M1 and M2 Mac

docker run --platform linux/arm64 --rm -it -v "$PWD:/pwd" trufflesecurity/trufflehog:latest github --repo https://github.com/trufflesecurity/test_keys

Binary releases

Download and unpack from https://github.com/trufflesecurity/trufflehog/releases

Compile from source

git clone https://github.com/trufflesecurity/trufflehog.git
cd trufflehog; go install

Using installation script

curl -sSfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/trufflesecurity/trufflehog/main/scripts/install.sh | sh -s -- -b /usr/local/bin

Using installation script, verify checksum signature (requires cosign to be installed)

curl -sSfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/trufflesecurity/trufflehog/main/scripts/install.sh | sh -s -- -v -b /usr/local/bin

Using installation script to install a specific version

curl -sSfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/trufflesecurity/trufflehog/main/scripts/install.sh | sh -s -- -b /usr/local/bin <ReleaseTag like v3.56.0>

🔐 Verifying the artifacts

Checksums are applied to all artifacts, and the resulting checksum file is signed using cosign.

You need the following tool to verify signature:

• Cosign

Verification steps are as follow:

1. Download the artifact files you want, and the following files from the releases page.

   • trufflehog_{version}_checksums.txt
   • trufflehog_{version}_checksums.txt.pem
   • trufflehog_{version}_checksums.txt.sig

2. Verify the signature:

   cosign verify-blob <path to trufflehog_{version}_checksums.txt> \
   --certificate <path to trufflehog_{version}_checksums.txt.pem> \
   --signature <path to trufflehog_{version}_checksums.txt.sig> \
   --certificate-identity-regexp 'https://github\.com/trufflesecurity/trufflehog/\.github/workflows/.+' \
   --certificate-oidc-issuer "https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com"
   

3. Once the signature is confirmed as valid, you can proceed to validate that the SHA256 sums align with the downloaded artifact:

   sha256sum --ignore-missing -c trufflehog_{version}_checksums.txt
   

Replace {version} with the downloaded files version

Alternatively, if you are using installation script, pass -v option to perform signature verification. This required Cosign binary to be installed prior to running installation script.

🚀 Quick Start

1: Scan a repo for only verified secrets

Command:

trufflehog git https://github.com/trufflesecurity/test_keys --only-verified

Expected output:

🐷🔑🐷  TruffleHog. Unearth your secrets. 🐷🔑🐷

Found verified result 🐷🔑
Detector Type: AWS
Decoder Type: PLAIN
Raw result: AKIAYVP4CIPPERUVIFXG
Line: 4
Commit: fbc14303ffbf8fb1c2c1914e8dda7d0121633aca
File: keys
Email: counter <counter@counters-MacBook-Air.local>
Repository: https://github.com/trufflesecurity/test_keys
Timestamp: 2022-06-16 10:17:40 -0700 PDT
...

2: Scan a GitHub Org for only verified secrets

trufflehog github --org=trufflesecurity --only-verified

3: Scan a GitHub Repo for only verified keys and get JSON output

Command:

trufflehog git https://github.com/trufflesecurity/test_keys --only-verified --json

Expected output:

{"SourceMetadata":{"Data":{"Git":{"commit":"fbc14303ffbf8fb1c2c1914e8dda7d0121633aca","file":"keys","email":"counter \u003ccounter@counters-MacBook-Air.local\u003e","repository":"https://github.com/trufflesecurity/test_keys","timestamp":"2022-06-16 10:17:40 -0700 PDT","line":4}}},"SourceID":0,"SourceType":16,"SourceName":"trufflehog - git","DetectorType":2,"DetectorName":"AWS","DecoderName":"PLAIN","Verified":true,"Raw":"AKIAYVP4CIPPERUVIFXG","Redacted":"AKIAYVP4CIPPERUVIFXG","ExtraData":{"account":"595918472158","arn":"arn:aws:iam::595918472158:user/canarytokens.com@@mirux23ppyky6hx3l6vclmhnj","user_id":"AIDAYVP4CIPPJ5M54LRCY"},"StructuredData":null}
...

4: Scan a GitHub Repo + its Issues and Pull Requests

trufflehog github --repo=https://github.com/trufflesecurity/test_keys --issue-comments --pr-comments

5: Scan an S3 bucket for verified keys

trufflehog s3 --bucket=<bucket name> --only-verified

6: Scan S3 buckets using IAM Roles

trufflehog s3 --role-arn=<iam role arn>

7: Scan a Github Repo using SSH authentication in docker

docker run --rm -v "$HOME/.ssh:/root/.ssh:ro" trufflesecurity/trufflehog:latest git ssh://github.com/trufflesecurity/test_keys

8: Scan individual files or directories

trufflehog filesystem path/to/file1.txt path/to/file2.txt path/to/dir

9: Scan GCS buckets for verified secrets

trufflehog gcs --project-id=<project-ID> --cloud-environment --only-verified

10: Scan a Docker image for verified secrets

Use the --image flag multiple times to scan multiple images.

trufflehog docker --image trufflesecurity/secrets --only-verified

11: Scan in CI

Set the --since-commit flag to your default branch that people merge into (ex: "main"). Set the --branch flag to your PR's branch name (ex: "feature-1"). Depending on the CI/CD platform you use, this value can be pulled in dynamically (ex: CIRCLE_BRANCH in Circle CI and TRAVIS_PULL_REQUEST_BRANCH in Travis CI). If the repo is cloned and the target branch is already checked out during the CI/CD workflow, then --branch HEAD should be sufficient. The --fail flag will return an 183 error code if valid credentials are found.

trufflehog git file://. --since-commit main --branch feature-1 --only-verified --fail

12: Scan a Postman workspace

Use the --workspace-id, --collection-id, --environment flags multiple times to scan multiple targets.

trufflehog postman --token=<postman api token> --workspace-id=<workspace id>

13: Scan a Jenkins server

trufflehog jenkins --url https://jenkins.example.com --username admin --password admin

14: Scan an Elasticsearch server

Scan a Local Cluster

There are two ways to authenticate to a local cluster with TruffleHog: (1) username and password, (2) service token.

Connect to a local cluster with username and password

trufflehog elasticsearch --nodes 192.168.14.3 192.168.14.4 --username truffle --password hog

Connect to a local cluster with a service token

trufflehog elasticsearch --nodes 192.168.14.3 192.168.14.4 --service-token ‘AAEWVaWM...Rva2VuaSDZ’

Scan an Elastic Cloud Cluster

To scan a cluster on Elastic Cloud, you’ll need a Cloud ID and API key.

trufflehog elasticsearch \
  --cloud-id 'search-prod:dXMtY2Vx...YjM1ODNlOWFiZGRlNjI0NA==' \
  --api-key 'MlVtVjBZ...ZSYlduYnF1djh3NG5FQQ=='

15. Scan a GitHub Repository for Cross Fork Object References and Deleted Commits

The following command will enumerate deleted and hidden commits on a GitHub repository and then scan them for secrets. This is an alpha release feature.

trufflehog github-experimental --repo https://github.com/<USER>/<REPO>.git --object-discovery

In addition to the normal TruffleHog output, the --object-discovery flag creates two files in a new $HOME/.trufflehog directory: valid_hidden.txt and invalid.txt. These are used to track state during commit enumeration, as well as to provide users with a complete list of all hidden and deleted commits (valid_hidden.txt). If you'd like to automatically remove these files after scanning, please add the flag --delete-cached-data.

Note: Enumerating all valid commits on a repository using this method takes between 20 minutes and a few hours, depending on the size of your repository. We added a progress bar to keep you updated on how long the enumeration will take. The actual secret scanning runs extremely fast.

For more information on Cross Fork Object References, please read our blog post.

16. Scan Hugging Face

Scan a Hugging Face Model, Dataset or Space

trufflehog huggingface --model <model_id> --space <space_id> --dataset <dataset_id>

Scan all Models, Datasets and Spaces belonging to a Hugging Face Organization or User

trufflehog huggingface --org <orgname> --user <username>

(Optionally) When scanning an organization or user, you can skip an entire class of resources with --skip-models, --skip-datasets, --skip-spaces OR a particular resource with --ignore-models <model_id>, --ignore-datasets <dataset_id>, --ignore-spaces <space_id>.

Scan Discussion and PR Comments

trufflehog huggingface --model <model_id> --include-discussions --include-prs

❓ FAQ

• All I see is 🐷🔑🐷 TruffleHog. Unearth your secrets. 🐷🔑🐷 and the program exits, what gives?
  • That means no secrets were detected
• Why is the scan taking a long time when I scan a GitHub org
  • Unauthenticated GitHub scans have rate limits. To improve your rate limits, include the --token flag with a personal access token
• It says a private key was verified, what does that mean?
  • Check out our Driftwood blog post to learn how to do this, in short we've confirmed the key can be used live for SSH or SSL Blog post
• Is there an easy way to ignore specific secrets?
  • If the scanned source supports line numbers, then you can add a trufflehog:ignore comment on the line containing the secret to ignore that secrets.

📰 What's new in v3?

TruffleHog v3 is a complete rewrite in Go with many new powerful features.

• We've added over 700 credential detectors that support active verification against their respective APIs.
• We've also added native support for scanning GitHub, GitLab, Docker, filesystems, S3, GCS, Circle CI and Travis CI.
• Instantly verify private keys against millions of github users and billions of TLS certificates using our Driftwood technology.
• Scan binaries, documents, and other file formats
• Available as a GitHub Action and a pre-commit hook

What is credential verification?

For every potential credential that is detected, we've painstakingly implemented programmatic verification against the API that we think it belongs to. Verification eliminates false positives. For example, the AWS credential detector performs a GetCallerIdentity API call against the AWS API to verify if an AWS credential is active.

📝 Usage

TruffleHog has a sub-command for each source of data that you may want to scan:

• git
• github
• gitlab
• docker
• s3
• filesystem (files and directories)
• syslog
• circleci
• travisci
• gcs (Google Cloud Storage)
• postman
• jenkins
• elasticsearch

Each subcommand can have options that you can see with the --help flag provided to the sub command:

$ trufflehog git --help
usage: TruffleHog git [<flags>] <uri>

Find credentials in git repositories.

Flags:
  -h, --help                Show context-sensitive help (also try --help-long and --help-man).
      --debug               Run in debug mode.
      --trace               Run in trace mode.
      --profile             Enables profiling and sets a pprof and fgprof server on :18066.
  -j, --json                Output in JSON format.
      --json-legacy         Use the pre-v3.0 JSON format. Only works with git, gitlab, and github sources.
      --github-actions      Output in GitHub Actions format.
      --concurrency=20           Number of concurrent workers.
      --no-verification     Don't verify the results.
      --only-verified       Only output verified results.
      --allow-verification-overlap
                                 Allow verification of similar credentials across detectors
      --filter-unverified   Only output first unverified result per chunk per detector if there are more than one results.
      --filter-entropy=FILTER-ENTROPY
                                 Filter unverified results with Shannon entropy. Start with 3.0.
      --config=CONFIG            Path to configuration file.
      --print-avg-detector-time
                                 Print the average time spent on each detector.
      --no-update           Don't check for updates.
      --fail                Exit with code 183 if results are found.
      --verifier=VERIFIER ...    Set custom verification endpoints.
      --custom-verifiers-only   Only use custom verification endpoints.
      --archive-max-size=ARCHIVE-MAX-SIZE
                                 Maximum size of archive to scan. (Byte units eg. 512B, 2KB, 4MB)
      --archive-max-depth=ARCHIVE-MAX-DEPTH
                                 Maximum depth of archive to scan.
      --archive-timeout=ARCHIVE-TIMEOUT
                                 Maximum time to spend extracting an archive.
      --include-detectors="all"  Comma separated list of detector types to include. Protobuf name or IDs may be used, as well as ranges.
      --exclude-detectors=EXCLUDE-DETECTORS
                                 Comma separated list of detector types to exclude. Protobuf name or IDs may be used, as well as ranges. IDs defined here take precedence over the include list.
      --version             Show application version.
  -i, --include-paths=INCLUDE-PATHS
                                 Path to file with newline separated regexes for files to include in scan.
  -x, --exclude-paths=EXCLUDE-PATHS
                                 Path to file with newline separated regexes for files to exclude in scan.
      --exclude-globs=EXCLUDE-GLOBS
                                 Comma separated list of globs to exclude in scan. This option filters at the `git log` level, resulting in faster scans.
      --since-commit=SINCE-COMMIT
                                 Commit to start scan from.
      --branch=BRANCH            Branch to scan.
      --max-depth=MAX-DEPTH      Maximum depth of commits to scan.
      --bare                Scan bare repository (e.g. useful while using in pre-receive hooks)

Args:
  <uri>  Git repository URL. https://, file://, or ssh:// schema expected.

For example, to scan a git repository, start with

trufflehog git https://github.com/trufflesecurity/trufflehog.git

S3

The S3 source supports assuming IAM roles for scanning in addition to IAM users. This makes it easier for users to scan multiple AWS accounts without needing to rely on hardcoded credentials for each account.

The IAM identity that TruffleHog uses initially will need to have AssumeRole privileges as a principal in the trust policy of each IAM role to assume.

To scan a specific bucket using locally set credentials or instance metadata if on an EC2 instance:

trufflehog s3 --bucket=<bucket-name>

To scan a specific bucket using an assumed role:

trufflehog s3 --bucket=<bucket-name> --role-arn=<iam-role-arn>

Multiple roles can be passed as separate arguments. The following command will attempt to scan every bucket each role has permissions to list in the S3 API:

trufflehog s3 --role-arn=<iam-role-arn-1> --role-arn=<iam-role-arn-2>

Exit Codes:

• 0: No errors and no results were found.
• 1: An error was encountered. Sources may not have completed scans.
• 183: No errors were encountered, but results were found. Will only be returned if --fail flag is used.

:octocat: TruffleHog Github Action

General Usage

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  pull_request:

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - name: Checkout code
      uses: actions/checkout@v4
      with:
        fetch-depth: 0
    - name: Secret Scanning
      uses: trufflesecurity/trufflehog@main
      with:
        extra_args: --only-verified

In the example config above, we're scanning for live secrets in all PRs and Pushes to main. Only code changes in the referenced commits are scanned. If you'd like to scan an entire branch, please see the "Advanced Usage" section below.

Shallow Cloning

If you're incorporating TruffleHog into a standalone workflow and aren't running any other CI/CD tooling alongside TruffleHog, then we recommend using Shallow Cloning to speed up your workflow. Here's an example for how to do it:

...
      - shell: bash
        run: |
          if [ "${{ github.event_name }}" == "push" ]; then
            echo "depth=$(($(jq length <<< '${{ toJson(github.event.commits) }}') + 2))" >> $GITHUB_ENV
            echo "branch=${{ github.ref_name }}" >> $GITHUB_ENV
          fi
          if [ "${{ github.event_name }}" == "pull_request" ]; then
            echo "depth=$((${{ github.event.pull_request.commits }}+2))" >> $GITHUB_ENV
            echo "branch=${{ github.event.pull_request.head.ref }}" >> $GITHUB_ENV
          fi
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          ref: ${{env.branch}}
          fetch-depth: ${{env.depth}}
      - uses: trufflesecurity/trufflehog@main
        with:
          extra_args: --only-verified
...

Depending on the event type (push or PR), we calculate the number of commits present. Then we add 2, so that we can reference a base commit before our code changes. We pass that integer value to the fetch-depth flag in the checkout action in addition to the relevant branch. Now our checkout process should be much shorter.

Canary detection

TruffleHog statically detects https://canarytokens.org/ and lets you know when they're present without setting them off. You can learn more here: https://trufflesecurity.com/canaries

Advanced Usage

- name: TruffleHog
  uses: trufflesecurity/trufflehog@main
  with:
    # Repository path
    path:
    # Start scanning from here (usually main branch).
    base:
    # Scan commits until here (usually dev branch).
    head: # optional
    # Extra args to be passed to the trufflehog cli.
    extra_args: --debug --only-verified

If you'd like to specify specific base and head refs, you can use the base argument (--since-commit flag in TruffleHog CLI) and the head argument (--branch flag in the TruffleHog CLI). We only recommend using these arguments for very specific use cases, where the default behavior does not work.

Advanced Usage: Scan entire branch

- name: scan-push
        uses: trufflesecurity/trufflehog@main
        with:
          base: ""
          head: ${{ github.ref_name }}
          extra_args: --only-verified

TruffleHog GitLab CI

Example Usage

stages:
  - security

security-secrets:
  stage: security
  allow_failure: false
  image: alpine:latest
  variables:
    SCAN_PATH: "." # Set the relative path in the repo to scan
  before_script:
    - apk add --no-cache git curl jq
    - curl -sSfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/trufflesecurity/trufflehog/main/scripts/install.sh | sh -s -- -b /usr/local/bin
  script:
    - trufflehog filesystem "$SCAN_PATH" --only-verified --fail --json | jq
  rules:
    - if: '$CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == "merge_request_event"'

In the example pipeline above, we're scanning for live secrets in all repository directories and files. This job runs only when the pipeline source is a merge request event, meaning it's triggered when a new merge request is created.

Pre-commit Hook

TruffleHog can be used in a pre-commit hook to prevent credentials from leaking before they ever leave your computer.

Key Usage Note:

• For optimal hook efficacy, execute git add followed by git commit separately. This ensures TruffleHog analyzes all intended changes.
• Avoid using git commit -am, as it might bypass pre-commit hook execution for unstaged modifications.

An example .pre-commit-config.yaml is provided (see pre-commit.com for installation).

repos:
  - repo: local
    hooks:
      - id: trufflehog
        name: TruffleHog
        description: Detect secrets in your data.
        entry: bash -c 'trufflehog git file://. --since-commit HEAD --only-verified --fail'
        # For running trufflehog in docker, use the following entry instead:
        # entry: bash -c 'docker run --rm -v "$(pwd):/workdir" -i --rm trufflesecurity/trufflehog:latest git file:///workdir --since-commit HEAD --only-verified --fail'
        language: system
        stages: ["commit", "push"]

Regex Detector (alpha)

TruffleHog supports detection and verification of custom regular expressions. For detection, at least one regular expression and keyword is required. A keyword is a fixed literal string identifier that appears in or around the regex to be detected. To allow maximum flexibility for verification, a webhook is used containing the regular expression matches.

TruffleHog will send a JSON POST request containing the regex matches to a configured webhook endpoint. If the endpoint responds with a 200 OK response status code, the secret is considered verified.

NB: This feature is alpha and subject to change.

Regex Detector Example

# config.yaml
detectors:
  - name: HogTokenDetector
    keywords:
      - hog
    regex:
      hogID: '\b(HOG[0-9A-Z]{17})\b'
      hogToken: '[^A-Za-z0-9+\/]{0,1}([A-Za-z0-9+\/]{40})[^A-Za-z0-9+\/]{0,1}'
    verify:
      - endpoint: http://localhost:8000/
        # unsafe must be set if the endpoint is HTTP
        unsafe: true
        headers:
          - "Authorization: super secret authorization header"

$ trufflehog filesystem /tmp --config config.yaml --only-verified
🐷🔑🐷  TruffleHog. Unearth your secrets. 🐷🔑🐷

Found verified result 🐷🔑
Detector Type: CustomRegex
Decoder Type: PLAIN
Raw result: HOGAAIUNNWHAHJJWUQYR
File: /tmp/hog-facts.txt

Data structure sent to the custom verification server:

{
    "HogTokenDetector": {
        "HogID": ["HOGAAIUNNWHAHJJWUQYR"],
        "HogSecret": ["sD9vzqdSsAOxntjAJ/qZ9sw+8PvEYg0r7D1Hhh0C"],
    }
}

Verification Server Example (Python)

Unless you run a verification server, secrets found by the custom regex detector will be unverified. Here is an example Python implementation of a verification server for the above config.yaml file.

import json
from http.server import BaseHTTPRequestHandler, HTTPServer

AUTH_HEADER = 'super secret authorization header'


class Verifier(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
    def do_GET(self):
        self.send_response(405)
        self.end_headers()

    def do_POST(self):
        try:
            if self.headers['Authorization'] != AUTH_HEADER:
                self.send_response(401)
                self.end_headers()
                return

            # read the body
            length = int(self.headers['Content-Length'])
            request = json.loads(self.rfile.read(length))
            self.log_message("%s", request)

            # check the match, you'll need to implement validateToken, which takes an array of ID's and Secrets
            if not validateTokens(request['HogTokenDetector']['hogID'], request['HogTokenDetector']['hogSecret']):
                self.send_response(200)
                self.end_headers()
            else:
                # any other response besides 200
                self.send_response(406)
                self.end_headers()
        except Exception:
            self.send_response(400)
            self.end_headers()


with HTTPServer(('', 8000), Verifier) as server:
    try:
        server.serve_forever()
    except KeyboardInterrupt:
        pass

🔍 Analyze

TruffleHog supports running a deeper analysis of a credential to view its permissions and the resources it has access to.

trufflehog analyze

❤️ Contributors

This project exists thanks to all the people who contribute. [Contribute].

💻 Contributing

Contributions are very welcome! Please see our contribution guidelines first.

We no longer accept contributions to TruffleHog v2, but that code is available in the v2 branch.

Adding new secret detectors

We have published some documentation and tooling to get started on adding new secret detectors. Let's improve detection together!

Use as a library

Currently, trufflehog is in heavy development and no guarantees can be made on the stability of the public APIs at this time.

License Change

Since v3.0, TruffleHog is released under a AGPL 3 license, included in LICENSE. TruffleHog v3.0 uses none of the previous codebase, but care was taken to preserve backwards compatibility on the command line interface. The work previous to this release is still available licensed under GPL 2.0 in the history of this repository and the previous package releases and tags. A completed CLA is required for us to accept contributions going forward.