Secrets Crisis: The Hidden Cost of AI-Accelerated Development

The rapid adoption of AI-assisted coding has created a paradox: while development velocity soared on GitHub in 2025, credential leaks surged 81% year over year. Organizations are building faster than their security practices can govern, turning every new AI service, API integration, and infrastructure layer into a potential attack surface. For attackers, leaked credentials represent direct access to production systems, making secrets sprawl the defining security challenge of the AI era.