Researchers gained access to Baseten's GitHub repositories

Specialists of the company Strix discovered a critical vulnerability in the infrastructure of the Baseten platform for deploying models. During the analysis of the Docker image build history, experts found a valid personal access token (PAT) with repository administrator rights.

Using the found key allowed researchers to gain full control over the company's GitHub production environment in just 25 minutes. The leak opened access to client repositories, as well as to the GitOps infrastructure used to manage the deployment of AI services.

The Baseten team promptly responded to the report and revoked the compromised token, eliminating the possibility of unauthorized access. The incident was recorded during a security audit, the results of which caused a wide discussion in the Hacker News community.

This case highlights the risks of storing secrets in container metadata. Even after removing sensitive data from the current version of the Docker image, they often remain available in the layer history, making automated CI/CD systems vulnerable to similar attacks.