Canva experienced a critical security incident caused by a **leaked hardcoded secret**, leading to **days of downtime across multiple engineering teams**. The breach diverted critical resources—originally allocated for product development—toward incident containment and remediation. The exposed secret enabled potential lateral movement risks, though no large-scale data exfiltration was publicly confirmed. The financial and operational impact included **lost productivity, delayed projects, and reputational harm**, compounded by the strain on an already lean security team. The incident highlights the cascading effects of unmanaged credentials in modern DevOps environments, where a single exposed API key or token can disrupt core business functions. While no customer data leak was reported, the operational outage aligned with high-severity internal disruptions, reinforcing the cost of credential mismanagement in scaled-down organizations.
Source: https://thehackernews.com/2025/09/lean-teams-higher-stakes-why-cisos-must.html
TPRM report: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/canva
"id": "can5593155092325",
"linkid": "canva",
"type": "Breach",
"date": "9/2025",
"severity": "60",
"impact": "3",
"explanation": "Attack with significant impact with internal employee data leaks"{'affected_entities': [{'industry': 'Banking',
'location': 'United States',
'name': 'Wells Fargo',
'size': 'Large (23% workforce reduction over 5 years)',
'type': 'Financial Services'},
{'industry': 'Banking',
'location': 'United States',
'name': 'Bank of America',
'size': 'Large (88,000 employees cut since 2010)',
'type': 'Financial Services'},
{'industry': 'Tech/Telecom',
'location': 'United States',
'name': 'Verizon',
'size': 'Large (ongoing headcount reductions)',
'type': 'Telecommunications'},
{'customers_affected': 'Multiple teams (downtime '
'impact)',
'industry': 'Software/Design',
'location': 'Global',
'name': 'Canva',
'type': 'Technology'},
{'industry': 'Software Development',
'location': 'Global',
'name': 'Nx (Nrwl)',
'type': 'Technology'},
{'customers_affected': '10,000+ private repositories '
'exposed',
'industry': 'Version Control/DevOps',
'location': 'Global',
'name': 'GitHub (s1ngularity attack)',
'type': 'Technology'}],
'attack_vector': ['Compromised Credentials',
'Hardcoded Secrets in Code/Repositories',
'GitHub Action Token Theft',
'Lateral Movement via Exposed API Keys'],
'customer_advisories': ['Monitor for notifications from affected platforms '
'(e.g., GitHub, Canva).',
'Rotate credentials if potentially exposed in supply '
'chain incidents.'],
'data_breach': {'data_exfiltration': ['Credentials sold on dark web '
'(potential)',
'Private repository exposure'],
'file_types_exposed': ['Code repositories',
'CI/CD configuration files',
'Collaboration platform logs'],
'number_of_records_exposed': '82,901 (s1ngularity attack); '
'2,349 (initial Nx compromise)',
'personally_identifiable_information': 'Potential (via '
'exposed credentials)',
'sensitivity_of_data': 'High (40% of secrets provide direct '
'production access)',
'type_of_data_compromised': ['API Keys',
'Tokens',
'GitHub Actions Secrets',
'Production Access Credentials',
'Nx Package Credentials']},
'description': 'The credential crisis is escalating as companies like Wells '
'Fargo, Bank of America, and Verizon reduce their workforces '
'by up to 23% over five years, leaving security teams '
'understaffed and overburdened. Hardcoded secrets—such as API '
'keys, tokens, and credentials embedded in code repositories, '
'CI/CD pipelines, Slack, Jira, and collaboration '
'platforms—pose a critical blind spot. IBM research shows 86% '
'of breaches involve stolen or compromised credentials, with '
'an average containment time of 292 days. Financial impacts '
'are severe, with U.S. breach costs reaching $10.22 million '
'(or over $11 million when hardcoded secrets are involved). '
'Manual secrets management wastes $1.4 million annually per '
'organization, while incidents like Canva’s leaked secret '
'caused multi-day downtime. The s1ngularity attack '
'demonstrated cascading risks: a GitHub token theft led to '
'2,349 compromised credentials and exposed 82,901 secrets '
'across 10,000 private repositories. Lean teams exacerbate '
'risks by prolonging remediation times, increasing '
'context-switching overhead, and amplifying the impact of '
'single exposed secrets (e.g., enabling lateral movement, '
'supply chain attacks, or ransomware). Strategic responses '
'include proactive detection, clear ownership assignment, '
'workflow-integrated remediation, and automated revocation to '
'cut remediation time from weeks to hours.',
'impact': {'brand_reputation_impact': ['Erosion of trust due to preventable '
'breaches',
"Negative perception of 'lean "
"operations' prioritizing cost-cutting "
'over security'],
'data_compromised': ['API Keys',
'Tokens',
'Production Access Credentials',
'GitHub Actions Tokens',
'Nx Package Credentials'],
'downtime': ['Multi-day outages (e.g., Canva)',
'Engineering resource diversion from product '
'development'],
'financial_loss': '$10.22 million (avg. U.S. breach cost); $11+ '
'million with hardcoded secrets; $1.4 million '
'annual waste on manual secrets management',
'identity_theft_risk': ['High (via exposed PII or credentials)',
'82,901 secrets exposed in s1ngularity '
'attack'],
'legal_liabilities': ['Regulatory fines (driving breach costs to '
'$10.22M)',
'Potential lawsuits from exposed PII or '
'sensitive data'],
'operational_impact': ['Prolonged mean-time-to-remediate (292 days '
'avg.)',
'Context-switching overhead for lean teams',
'Multi-team coordination delays for secrets '
'remediation'],
'systems_affected': ['Code Repositories (GitHub, etc.)',
'CI/CD Pipelines',
'Slack/Jira/Collaboration Platforms',
'Private Repositories (82,901 exposed)',
'Production Environments']},
'initial_access_broker': {'backdoors_established': ['Lateral movement via '
'exposed API keys',
'Supply chain compromise '
'(e.g., Nx packages)'],
'data_sold_on_dark_web': 'Likely (based on '
'credential theft '
'patterns)',
'entry_point': ['Compromised GitHub Action tokens',
'Hardcoded secrets in '
'public/private repositories'],
'high_value_targets': ['Production environments',
'CI/CD pipelines',
'Private repositories']},
'investigation_status': 'Ongoing (industry-wide trend analysis)',
'lessons_learned': ['Workforce reductions amplify cybersecurity risks by '
'stretching lean teams and prolonging remediation times.',
'Hardcoded secrets in code repositories/CI/CD pipelines '
'are a critical blind spot, enabling cascading supply '
'chain attacks.',
'Manual secrets management is unsustainable, wasting '
'$1.4M annually and delaying incident response.',
'Detection alone is insufficient; remediation requires '
'contextual ownership, infrastructure awareness, and '
'workflow integration.',
'Automated tools (e.g., GitGuardian) can reduce '
'remediation time from weeks to hours by pinpointing '
'exposed secrets and assigning ownership.'],
'motivation': ['Financial Gain (via Ransomware/Extortion)',
'Data Exfiltration for Dark Web Sales',
'Supply Chain Disruption'],
'post_incident_analysis': {'corrective_actions': ['Deploy **automated secrets '
'detection/remediation '
'platforms** (e.g., '
'GitGuardian).',
'Embed remediation guidance '
'into **developer '
'workflows** (e.g., IDE '
'plugins, PR comments).',
'Establish **cross-team '
'playbooks** for high-risk '
'secret incidents.',
'Prioritize **preventive '
'scanning** in CI/CD '
'pipelines to block secrets '
'at commit.',
'Measure and report **cost '
'savings** from reduced '
'manual effort ($1.4M/year '
'potential).'],
'root_causes': ['Underinvestment in secrets '
'management amid workforce '
'reductions.',
'Overreliance on manual processes '
'for credential rotation/exposure '
'investigation.',
'Lack of contextual ownership for '
'remediation (multi-team '
'coordination delays).',
'Proliferation of unmanaged '
'secrets across collaboration '
'platforms (Slack, Jira).',
'False positives overwhelming '
'security teams ($500K annual '
'cost).']},
'ransomware': {'data_exfiltration': ['Possible (via lateral movement from '
'exposed secrets)']},
'recommendations': ['Implement **proactive scanning** for hardcoded secrets '
'during code commits and in existing repositories.',
'Assign **clear ownership** for each secret to eliminate '
'remediation delays.',
'Integrate remediation workflows into **developer tools** '
'(e.g., automated PR fixes) to reduce context-switching.',
'Prioritize **high-risk secrets** (40% of exposed '
'credentials provide production access).',
'Adopt **automated credential rotation** to mitigate the '
'impact of leaked secrets.',
'Shift from reactive firefighting to **precision '
'remediation** with contextual threat scope analysis.',
'Quantify the **ROI of smart remediation** (e.g., $1.4M '
'annual savings from reduced manual effort).',
'Advocate for **security resource alignment** with '
'AI-driven efficiency initiatives to avoid critical '
'gaps.'],
'references': [{'source': 'IBM Security Cost of a Data Breach Report',
'url': 'https://www.ibm.com/reports/data-breach'},
{'source': 'HashiCorp State of Cloud Strategy Survey',
'url': 'https://www.hashicorp.com/resources'},
{'source': 'GitGuardian Secrets Detection Research',
'url': 'https://www.gitguardian.com/resources'},
{'source': 's1ngularity Attack Postmortem (GitHub Advisory)',
'url': 'https://github.com/advisories'},
{'source': 'Canva Incident Downtime Report'}],
'regulatory_compliance': {'fines_imposed': 'Contributed to $10.22M avg. '
'breach cost (U.S.)'},
'response': {'containment_measures': ['Proactive scanning for hardcoded '
'secrets',
'Automated secret revocation',
'Contextual ownership assignment'],
'enhanced_monitoring': ['Real-time remediation tracking',
'Threat scope analysis for exposed '
'secrets'],
'recovery_measures': ['Reduction of manual investigation time '
'($936K annual savings)',
'Elimination of false positives ($500K '
'annual savings)'],
'remediation_measures': ['Workflow-integrated remediation (e.g., '
'PR fixes in version control)',
'Automated credential rotation',
'Precision targeting of exposed '
'secrets'],
'third_party_assistance': ['GitGuardian (secrets '
'detection/remediation)',
'HashiCorp (research on '
'credential-based breaches)']},
'stakeholder_advisories': ['CISOs: Advocate for secrets management tools to '
'offset lean team risks.',
'Developers: Adopt workflow-integrated remediation '
'to reduce overhead.',
"Executives: Balance 'doing more with less' with "
'cybersecurity resource allocation.'],
'title': 'Hardcoded Secrets Crisis and Workforce Reduction Impact on '
'Cybersecurity',
'type': ['Credential Theft',
'Hardcoded Secrets Exposure',
'Supply Chain Compromise',
'Data Breach'],
'vulnerability_exploited': ['Hardcoded Secrets in Code Repositories',
'Unmanaged Secrets in CI/CD Pipelines',
'Lack of Automated Secrets Rotation',
'Insufficient Access Controls for High-Risk '
'Secrets']}