performing-paste-site-monitoring-for-credentials

Monitor paste sites like Pastebin and GitHub Gists for leaked credentials, API keys, and sensitive data dumps using automated scraping and keyword matching to detect breaches early.

Jump to install

Repository: xalgord/xalgorix
Last source activity: June 6, 2026 at 16:41
Detected SKILL.md language: English
Stars: 813
Forks: 146

Install options

The review-first prompt is selected by default. You can switch to a direct command or download a local copy.

Review the source files

Read SKILL.md and any companion files shown by SkillsMP before deciding whether to install.

Back to search Back to installation

name	performing-paste-site-monitoring-for-credentials
description	Monitor paste sites like Pastebin and GitHub Gists for leaked credentials, API keys, and sensitive data dumps using automated scraping and keyword matching to detect breaches early.
domain	cybersecurity
subdomain	threat-intelligence
tags	["paste-monitoring","credential-leak","pastebin","data-breach","threat-intelligence","osint","early-warning"]
version	1.0
author	mahipal
license	Apache-2.0
nist_csf	["ID.RA-01","ID.RA-05","DE.CM-01","DE.AE-02"]

Performing Paste Site Monitoring for Credentials

Overview

Paste sites (Pastebin, GitHub Gists, Ghostbin, Dpaste, Hastebin) are frequently used as staging areas for leaked credentials, database dumps, API keys, and sensitive data before wider distribution on dark web forums and Telegram channels. Monitoring these sites provides early breach detection, enabling organizations to respond before stolen data is weaponized. This skill covers building automated paste site monitors using the Pastebin Scraping API, keyword-based alerting, credential pattern matching, and integration with incident response workflows.

When to Use

When conducting security assessments that involve performing paste site monitoring for credentials
When following incident response procedures for related security events
When performing scheduled security testing or auditing activities
When validating security controls through hands-on testing

Detection Gaps & Validation

Ephemerality and coverage: the Pastebin Scraping API streams only recent public pastes - private pastes, pastes removed within the polling interval, and content posted elsewhere (Ghostbin, Dpaste, Telegram) never appear. Poll frequently and fetch raw content immediately; a paste can be deleted minutes after posting, so cache it at detection time.
API blind spots: scraping requires a PRO/whitelisted IP, and GitHub code/Gist search is rate-limited and indexes only public, indexed content (not force-pushed-away commits). A "no results" run may mean throttling - log HTTP 403/429 and retry rather than treating an empty result as clean.
Regex false positives: credential patterns match test fixtures, docs examples, AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE-style placeholders, and expired keys. Require corroboration - an org keyword plus a credential pattern plus a plausible (non-example) value - before raising critical.
Recycled combolists: the same email:password pairs are reposted endlessly, so a hit is often an old breach, not a new one. Dedupe against prior findings and known breaches.
How to confirm: validate that a flagged credential/key is live and actually yours - match the email domain and test the key against the provider's metadata endpoint (non-destructively) to confirm currency before forcing resets.

Prerequisites

Python 3.9+ with requests, beautifulsoup4, regex, pymisp libraries
Pastebin PRO account with Scraping API access ($49.95/month for programmatic access)

import requests
import re
import json
import time
from datetime import datetime

class PastebinMonitor:
    SCRAPING_URL = "https://scrape.pastebin.com/api_scraping.php"
    RAW_URL = "https://scrape.pastebin.com/api_scrape_item.php"

    def __init__(self, keywords, output_dir="paste_alerts"):
        self.keywords = [k.lower() for k in keywords]
        self.output_dir = output_dir
        self.seen_keys = set()
        self.credential_patterns = {
            "email_password": re.compile(
                r'[\w.+-]+@[\w-]+\.[\w.]+[\s:;|,]+[\S]{6,}', re.IGNORECASE),
            "aws_key": re.compile(
                r'AKIA[0-9A-Z]{16}'),
            "aws_secret": re.compile(
                r'[0-9a-zA-Z/+=]{40}'),
            "github_token": re.compile(
                r'ghp_[0-9a-zA-Z]{36}'),
            "slack_token": re.compile(
                r'xox[baprs]-[0-9a-zA-Z-]+'),
            "private_key": re.compile(
                r'-----BEGIN (?:RSA |EC |DSA )?PRIVATE KEY-----'),
            "jwt_token": re.compile(
                r'eyJ[A-Za-z0-9-_]+\.eyJ[A-Za-z0-9-_]+\.[A-Za-z0-9-_]+'),
            "connection_string": re.compile(
                r'(?:mongodb|postgres|mysql|redis)://[^\s]+'),
            "api_key_generic": re.compile(
                r'(?:api[_-]?key|apikey|access[_-]?token)[\s]*[=:]\s*["\']?[\w-]{20,}',
                re.IGNORECASE),
        }

    def fetch_recent_pastes(self, limit=100):
        """Fetch recent public pastes from Pastebin Scraping API."""
        params = {"limit": limit}
        try:
            resp = requests.get(self.SCRAPING_URL, params=params, timeout=30)
            if resp.status_code == 200:
                pastes = resp.json()
                print(f"[+] Fetched {len(pastes)} recent pastes")
                return pastes
            else:
                print(f"[-] API error: {resp.status_code}")
                return []
        except Exception as e:
            print(f"[-] Fetch error: {e}")
            return []

    def get_paste_content(self, paste_key):
        """Get the raw content of a paste."""
        params = {"i": paste_key}
        try:
            resp = requests.get(self.RAW_URL, params=params, timeout=15)
            if resp.status_code == 200:
                return resp.text
            return ""
        except Exception:
            return ""

    def analyze_paste(self, content, paste_metadata):
        """Analyze paste content for credentials and keywords."""
        findings = {
            "keyword_matches": [],
            "credential_matches": {},
            "severity": "low",
        }

        content_lower = content.lower()

        # Check keywords
        for keyword in self.keywords:
            if keyword in content_lower:
                count = content_lower.count(keyword)
                findings["keyword_matches"].append({
                    "keyword": keyword,
                    "count": count,
                })

        # Check credential patterns
        for pattern_name, pattern in self.credential_patterns.items():
            matches = pattern.findall(content)
            if matches:
                findings["credential_matches"][pattern_name] = {
                    "count": len(matches),
                    "samples": matches[:3],
                }

        # Calculate severity
        cred_count = sum(
            m["count"] for m in findings["credential_matches"].values()
        )
        if findings["keyword_matches"] and cred_count > 0:
            findings["severity"] = "critical"
        elif findings["keyword_matches"]:
            findings["severity"] = "high"
        elif cred_count > 10:
            findings["severity"] = "high"
        elif cred_count > 0:
            findings["severity"] = "medium"

        return findings

    def monitor_loop(self, interval=120, iterations=None):
        """Continuous monitoring loop."""
        count = 0
        while iterations is None or count < iterations:
            pastes = self.fetch_recent_pastes()
            alerts = []

            for paste in pastes:
                paste_key = paste.get("key", "")
                if paste_key in self.seen_keys:
                    continue
                self.seen_keys.add(paste_key)

                content = self.get_paste_content(paste_key)
                if not content:
                    continue

                findings = self.analyze_paste(content, paste)
                if findings["severity"] != "low":
                    alert = {
                        "paste_key": paste_key,
                        "title": paste.get("title", "Untitled"),
                        "user": paste.get("user", "Anonymous"),
                        "date": paste.get("date", ""),
                        "size": paste.get("size", 0),
                        "url": f"https://pastebin.com/{paste_key}",
                        "findings": findings,
                        "detected_at": datetime.now().isoformat(),
                    }
                    alerts.append(alert)
                    print(f"  [ALERT-{findings['severity'].upper()}] "
                          f"{paste_key}: {findings['keyword_matches']}")

            if alerts:
                self._save_alerts(alerts)

            count += 1
            if iterations is None or count < iterations:
                time.sleep(interval)

        return alerts

    def _save_alerts(self, alerts):
        """Save alerts to JSON file."""
        filename = f"{self.output_dir}/alerts_{datetime.now().strftime('%Y%m%d_%H%M%S')}.json"
        import os
        os.makedirs(self.output_dir, exist_ok=True)
        with open(filename, "w") as f:
            json.dump(alerts, f, indent=2)
        print(f"[+] Saved {len(alerts)} alerts to {filename}")

monitor = PastebinMonitor(
    keywords=["mycompany.com", "internal-project", "employee-name"],
)
alerts = monitor.monitor_loop(interval=120, iterations=5)

class GitHubSecretMonitor:
    def __init__(self, github_token, org_keywords):
        self.token = github_token
        self.keywords = org_keywords
        self.headers = {
            "Authorization": f"token {github_token}",
            "Accept": "application/vnd.github.v3+json",
        }

    def search_code(self, query, per_page=30):
        """Search GitHub code for leaked secrets."""
        url = "https://api.github.com/search/code"
        params = {"q": query, "per_page": per_page}
        resp = requests.get(url, headers=self.headers, params=params)
        if resp.status_code == 200:
            results = resp.json().get("items", [])
            print(f"[+] GitHub code search: {len(results)} results for '{query}'")
            return results
        return []

    def search_gists(self, keyword):
        """Search public Gists for sensitive data."""
        url = "https://api.github.com/gists/public"
        params = {"per_page": 100}
        resp = requests.get(url, headers=self.headers, params=params)
        matches = []
        if resp.status_code == 200:
            gists = resp.json()
            for gist in gists:
                description = (gist.get("description") or "").lower()
                files = gist.get("files", {})
                for filename, file_info in files.items():
                    if keyword.lower() in description or keyword.lower() in filename.lower():
                        matches.append({
                            "gist_id": gist["id"],
                            "description": gist.get("description", ""),
                            "filename": filename,
                            "url": gist["html_url"],
                            "created_at": gist["created_at"],
                        })
        return matches

    def monitor_org_secrets(self, org_domain):
        """Monitor for organization secrets leaked on GitHub."""
        queries = [
            f'"{org_domain}" password',
            f'"{org_domain}" api_key',
            f'"{org_domain}" secret',
            f'"{org_domain}" token',
            f'"{org_domain}" credentials',
        ]
        all_findings = []
        for query in queries:
            results = self.search_code(query)
            for result in results:
                all_findings.append({
                    "query": query,
                    "repo": result.get("repository", {}).get("full_name", ""),
                    "path": result.get("path", ""),
                    "url": result.get("html_url", ""),
                    "score": result.get("score", 0),
                })
            time.sleep(10)  # GitHub rate limiting
        return all_findings

gh_monitor = GitHubSecretMonitor("YOUR_GITHUB_TOKEN", ["mycompany.com"])
findings = gh_monitor.monitor_org_secrets("mycompany.com")

def generate_credential_leak_alert(alert_data):
    """Generate incident alert for credential leak detection."""
    alert = {
        "title": f"Credential Leak Detected - {alert_data.get('severity', 'unknown').upper()}",
        "source": alert_data.get("url", ""),
        "detected_at": alert_data.get("detected_at", ""),
        "severity": alert_data.get("severity", "medium"),
        "summary": f"Paste containing organization keywords and credentials found",
        "keyword_matches": alert_data.get("findings", {}).get("keyword_matches", []),
        "credential_types": list(alert_data.get("findings", {}).get("credential_matches", {}).keys()),
        "recommended_actions": [
            "Verify if leaked credentials are valid",
            "Force password reset for affected accounts",
            "Rotate exposed API keys and tokens",
            "Check access logs for unauthorized usage",
            "Report paste for takedown",
            "Update monitoring keywords if new patterns found",
        ],
    }
    return alert