24,008 secrets found in public MCP config files — 2,117 of them still live

GitGuardian's State of Secrets Sprawl 2026 report found 24,008 secrets exposed in public Model Context Protocol (MCP) config files, 2,117 of them still valid — largely because quickstart guides tell you to paste API keys straight into a JSON config. A related trick, 'tool poisoning,' hides an imperative instruction inside a tool's own description text that a model may then obey.

What it means The convenience of pasting a key into an MCP config is exactly how it leaks — keep secrets out of tool configs, and read a tool's description as untrusted input, not just documentation.