GitGuardian researchers found 321 n8n instances accepting API tokens exposed in public GitHub commits and demonstrated four ways attackers could use them to access sensitive data and downstream credentials without exploiting a software vulnerability.
We scanned public GitHub commits for exposed n8n API tokens and identified 4,576 unique credentials associated with 1,255 hostnames. Of the 896 instances reachable at the time of testing, 321 accepted at least one leaked token.
That means leaked credentials provided authenticated access to 36% of the reachable instances we tested, or roughly 26% of all hostnames identified in the commits.
The implications extend well beyond n8n. Organizations use the automation platform to connect databases, source code repositories, cloud environments, artificial intelligence services, customer support platforms, and other internal systems. A sufficiently privileged n8n token can expose workflow definitions and execution data, allow attackers to use stored credentials, and, in some configurations, enable them to extract the underlying credential values.
To measure the potential blast radius, we reproduced four practical attack techniques in a controlled n8n environment. Each required only documented REST API functionality and standard HTTP requests. No CVE exploitation or specialized tooling was necessary.
