Your AI coding assistant is leaking secrets
AI desktop assistants and coding tools need credentials to reach external services, and many of them store those credentials as plaintext JSON at predictable paths in the user's home directory. This research covers how credential storage works across 14 popular AI tools, where OS keychain integration is present or missing, and eight attack scenarios that turn that exposure into real risk, from malware-based theft to remote session hijacking to supply-chain compromise via MCP servers.