Titus: High-Performance Secrets Scanner

Titus is a high-performance secrets scanner that detects credentials, API keys, and tokens in source code, files, and git history. It ships with 487 detection rules covering hundreds of services and credential types, drawn from NoseyParker and Kingfisher. Titus runs as a CLI, a Go library, a Burp Suite extension, and a Chrome browser extension — all sharing the same detection engine and rule set.

Built for security engineers, penetration testers, and DevSecOps teams, Titus combines Hyperscan/Vectorscan-accelerated regex matching with live credential validation to find and verify leaked secrets across your entire codebase.

Table of Contents

• Why Titus?
• Installation
• Quick Start
• Scanning Options
• Finding Scoring
• Go Library
• Burp Suite Extension
• Browser Extension
• Building from Source
• Contributing
• License

Why Titus?

• Fast secrets scanning: Regex matching accelerated by Hyperscan/Vectorscan when available, with a pure-Go fallback for portability on any platform.
• Broad credential detection coverage: 487 rules detect API keys, tokens, and credentials for AWS, GCP, Azure, GitHub, Slack, databases, CI/CD systems, and hundreds more services.
• Live secret validation: Detected secrets are checked against their source APIs to confirm whether they are active, reducing false positives and prioritizing remediation.
• Risk-based severity scoring: Every finding receives a numeric score (0–100) and severity tier (info → critical). Scores are tuned by static rule metadata, code-accessibility context, and live API calls that measure the real blast radius of a credential — so the most dangerous findings always surface first.
• Container image scanning: Scan Docker and OCI images directly from any registry, tarball, or OCI layout directory — no Docker daemon or binary required.
• Multiple interfaces for every workflow: Scan from the CLI, embed as a Go library, passively scan HTTP traffic in Burp Suite, or scan web pages in Chrome during application security testing.
• Binary file extraction: Extract and scan secrets from Office documents, PDFs, archives (zip, tar, 7z), mobile apps (APK, IPA), browser extensions, and more.

Installation

Download a prebuilt binary from the Releases page, or build from source:

make build

The binary will be at dist/titus.

Quick Start

# Scan a file for secrets
titus scan path/to/file.txt

# Scan a directory for leaked credentials
titus scan path/to/directory

# Scan a public GitHub repository (no token needed)
titus scan github.com/org/repo

# Scan a public GitLab project (no token needed)
titus scan gitlab.com/namespace/project

# Scan git history for secrets in past commits
titus scan --git path/to/repo

# Scan a Docker / OCI image (pulled from a registry — no docker daemon required)
titus scan --docker alpine:latest

# Validate detected secrets against source APIs
titus scan path/to/code --validate

Results are written to a datastore (titus.ds by default) and printed to the console.

Subcommands

Titus organizes its functionality into these focused subcommands:

titus analyze # Analyze a credential on demand — detect type, validate, score, and enumerate resources
titus enum    # Enumerate remote services for secrets
titus explore # Interactively explore scan results
titus report  # Generate a report from scan results
titus rules   # Manage detection rules
titus scan    # Scan a target for secrets
titus serve   # Run as streaming server for Burp extension integration
titus version # Show version information

Every subcommand accepts --help for its own flags. The top-level titus <provider> forms that predate titus enum <provider> still work, but they are hidden and deprecated rather than aliases, so they are listed in the generated reference instead of here.

The full reference — every subcommand, alias and flag, including the ones hidden from --help — is generated into docs/CLI.md.

Scanning Options

GitHub & GitLab Scanning

Scan public repositories directly by URL — no API token required:

# Scan a GitHub repository
titus scan github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes

# Scan a GitLab project
titus scan gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cli

# Full URLs work too
titus scan https://github.com/org/repo
titus scan https://gitlab.com/namespace/project.git

For organization-wide or user-wide scanning, use the dedicated subcommands:

# Scan all public repos in a GitHub org
titus github --org kubernetes

# Scan all repos in a GitHub org with a token (private repos + higher rate limits)
titus github --org kubernetes --token $GITHUB_TOKEN

# Scan all repos for a GitHub user
titus github --user octocat

# Scan all projects in a GitLab group
titus gitlab scan --group mygroup --token $GITLAB_TOKEN

# Scan a single repo with git history (finds deleted secrets)
titus github scan owner/repo --git

Tokens are optional for public repositories. Set GITHUB_TOKEN or GITLAB_TOKEN (or use --token) for private repository access and higher API rate limits.

Docker / OCI Image Scanning

Scan container images directly — no docker daemon, no docker binary required. Titus pulls images straight from any OCI registry over HTTPS (using credentials from ~/.docker/config.json), or reads images from a local docker save tarball or OCI image layout directory. It then scans image manifest/config metadata and every regular file in every layer, including lower-layer files deleted by later layers (since secrets can remain recoverable from image history).

# Pull from a registry and scan
titus scan --docker alpine:latest
titus scan docker://ghcr.io/owner/repo:tag

# Scan an image saved to a tarball:
#   docker save my-app:latest -o my-app.tar
#   podman save my-app:latest -o my-app.tar
titus scan --docker ./my-app.tar

# Scan an OCI image layout directory:
#   docker buildx build --output type=oci,dest=./img/ .
#   skopeo copy docker://my-app:latest oci:./img:latest
titus scan --docker ./img/

Authentication uses your existing Docker / Podman config (~/.docker/config.json, ${XDG_RUNTIME_DIR}/containers/auth.json). Private registries that need a fresh login should first be authenticated with docker login (or podman login, or crane auth login) — titus does not prompt for credentials.

Viewing Scan Results

Use report to re-read findings from a previous scan:

# Human-readable summary of detected secrets
titus report

# JSON output for programmatic processing
titus report --format json

# SARIF output for CI/CD integration with GitHub Advanced Security
titus report --format sarif

# Report from a specific datastore
titus report --datastore path/to/titus.ds

# Only findings from one repository (host-qualified as recorded, or without the host)
titus report --repo github.com/acme/api

# Repeat a selector, or combine selectors; a location matching any value is kept
titus report --namespace github.com/acme --namespace gitlab.example.com/acme --path src/config.yaml

# List the repository, namespace and path values that select current findings
titus report sources

# List every recorded source, including sources with no findings
titus report sources all

You can also control the output format at scan time with --format:

titus scan path/to/code --format json

Validating Detected Secrets

Pass --validate during a scan to check detected secrets against their source APIs:

titus scan path/to/code --validate

Validation runs concurrently (4 workers by default, configurable with --validate-workers) and marks each finding as confirmed, denied, or unknown.

Filtering Detection Rules

# List all available detection rules
titus rules list

# Scan with only specific rules (e.g., AWS and GCP credentials)
titus scan path/to/code --rules-include "aws,gcp"

# Exclude rules by pattern
titus scan path/to/code --rules-exclude "kingfisher.generic"

# Use a custom rules file for organization-specific secrets
titus scan path/to/code --rules path/to/custom-rules.yaml

# Opt in to rules marked noisy: true (high false-positive rate, off by default)
titus scan path/to/code --include-noisy

Rules marked visible: false are helpers that capture context for other rules, such as a client ID, account name or host, rather than a secret. Their patterns still run, but their matches are never reported, by the CLI or the Go library, even when the rule is selected explicitly.

Extracting Secrets from Binary Files

Titus can extract text from binary file formats and scan the contents for secrets:

# Extract and scan all supported binary formats
titus scan path/to/files --extract=all

# Target specific formats
titus scan path/to/files --extract=xlsx,docx,pdf,zip

Supported formats include Office documents (xlsx, docx, pptx, odp, ods, odt), PDFs, Jupyter notebooks, SQLite databases, email (eml, rtf), and archives (zip, tar, tar.gz, jar, war, ear, apk, ipa, crx, xpi, 7z). Archives are recursively extracted up to configurable depth and size limits.

# Tune extraction limits for large codebases
titus scan path/to/files --extract=all \
  --extract-max-size 10MB \
  --extract-max-total 100MB \
  --extract-max-depth 5

For SQLite databases, Titus extracts text from all tables (1000 rows per table by default). Use --sqlite-row-limit to adjust:

# Full dump of all SQLite tables (no row limit)
titus scan path/to/files --extract=all --sqlite-row-limit 0

# Custom row limit per table
titus scan path/to/files --extract=all --sqlite-row-limit 5000

Finding Scoring

Every finding Titus produces carries a numeric score from 0–100 and a severity tier:

Score	Severity
0–20	info
21–40	low
41–60	medium
61–80	high
81–100	critical

Scores start from the rule's base_score and are adjusted by modifiers — conditions that raise or lower the score based on what is known about the credential:

# Score findings using static rule metadata only (no network calls)
titus scan path/to/code

# Score findings AND make live API calls to verify credential blast radius
# (calls AWS STS/IAM and GitHub API for supported credential types)
titus scan path/to/code --score-scope

# Override the accessibility context (default: auto-detected from git remote)
titus scan path/to/code --accessibility public   # no penalty for public repos
titus scan path/to/code --accessibility private  # -25 penalty (default for local scans)

Titus ships with YAML scorers for AWS credentials, GitHub PATs, and Slack tokens, plus Go-based SDK scorers that perform live IAM policy enumeration (AWS) and repository permission checks (GitHub fine-grained PATs) when --score-scope is enabled.

See docs/scoring.md for the complete reference: severity tiers, modifier kinds, built-in scorer details, and how to write your own YAML or Go scorers.

Go Library for Secrets Detection

Titus can be imported as a Go library to add secrets detection to your own tools and pipelines.

go get github.com/praetorian-inc/titus

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "log"

    "github.com/praetorian-inc/titus"
)

func main() {
    // Initialize the secrets scanner with default rules
    scanner, err := titus.NewScanner()
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }
    defer scanner.Close()

    // Scan a string for API keys, tokens, and credentials
    matches, err := scanner.ScanString(`aws_access_key_id = AKIADEADBEEFDEADBEEF`)
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }

    for _, match := range matches {
        fmt.Printf("%s (rule: %s) at line %d\n",
            match.RuleName, match.RuleID,
            match.Location.SourceSpan.Start.Line,
        )
    }
}

The library also supports scanning bytes and files, validating detected secrets, and loading custom rules:

// Scan a file for leaked credentials
matches, err := scanner.ScanFile("/path/to/config.json")

// Enable validation to check if detected secrets are live
scanner, err := titus.NewScanner(titus.WithValidation())

// Load custom detection rules for organization-specific secrets
rules, err := titus.LoadRulesFromFile("/path/to/rules.yaml")
scanner, err := titus.NewScanner(titus.WithRules(rules))

See docs/library-usage.md for the full API reference, concurrency patterns, and more examples.

Burp Suite Extension for Secret Scanning

The Burp extension scans HTTP responses for secrets during proxy traffic and active penetration testing.

Setup

Linux / macOS (Build from Source)

# Build the CLI and Burp extension JAR, install CLI to ~/.titus/
make install-burp

Then load dist/titus-burp-1.0.0-all.jar in Burp Suite under Extensions > Add.

Windows (Download from Releases)

1. Download titus-windows-amd64.exe and titus-burp-<version>.jar from Releases
2. Create the Titus directory and install the binary:

   mkdir %USERPROFILE%\.titus
   copy titus-windows-amd64.exe %USERPROFILE%\.titus\titus.exe
   

3. Load the JAR in Burp Suite under Extensions > Add

Linux / macOS (Download from Releases)

1. Download the appropriate binary for your platform and titus-burp-<version>.jar from Releases:
   • titus-linux-amd64 or titus-linux-arm64 for Linux
   • titus-darwin-amd64 or titus-darwin-arm64 for macOS
2. Install the binary:

   mkdir -p ~/.titus
   cp titus-<platform> ~/.titus/titus
   chmod +x ~/.titus/titus
   

3. Load the JAR in Burp Suite under Extensions > Add

The extension launches a titus serve process in the background and communicates over stdin/stdout using NDJSON. Detection rules are loaded once at startup.

Burp Extension Features

• Passive secret scanning: automatically scans proxy traffic as it flows through Burp
• Active secret scanning: right-click context menu to scan selected requests
• Deduplication: same secret is reported only once per engagement
• Fast-path filtering: binary content, images, and non-text responses are skipped
• Live credential validation: check detected secrets against source APIs to confirm if they're active
• False positive management: mark findings as false positives to filter noise
• Severity classification: findings color-coded by risk (High/Medium/Low)
• Export: save findings to JSON for reporting

Burp Extension Interface

The extension adds a Titus tab to Burp with three sub-tabs:

Secrets: All detected secrets with filtering by type, host, and validation status.

• Validation status: Shows whether secrets have been checked (Active/Inactive/Unknown)
• Filtering: Click Type, Host, or Status buttons to filter by specific values; use the search box for text and regex matching
• Bulk actions: Select multiple rows to validate or mark as false positive in batch
• Secret Details panel: Select a finding to view:
  • Details: Rule info, category, full secret value, first seen timestamp
  • URLs: All locations where this secret was found
  • Validation: Validation result with details (e.g., AWS account ID, ARN)
  • Request/Response: Full HTTP traffic with the secret highlighted

Statistics: Aggregate view of secrets grouped by type and host.

• Summary: Total unique secrets, hosts scanned, validation breakdown (active vs inactive), and false positive count
• Secrets by Type: Count of each secret type with category classification
• Secrets by Host: Number of secrets found per host

Settings: Configure scanning options, validation, and severity mappings.

• Scan Settings:
  • Passive scanning: Automatically scan all proxy traffic (enabled by default)
  • Request body scanning: Also scan request bodies for secrets sent by the application
  • Validation: Enable to check secrets against source APIs (makes outbound requests and may trigger alerts)
• Scan Parameters: Worker threads, max file size, context snippet length
• Severity Configuration: Customize severity levels per secret category
• Actions: Clear cache, reset settings, save/export findings to JSON

When viewing any request in Burp, a Titus tab appears in the response inspector if secrets are detected, providing quick access to findings without switching to the main Titus tab.

Chrome Browser Extension for Secret Scanning

The Chrome extension scans web pages for secrets during web application security assessments.

Setup

make build-extension

1. Navigate to chrome://extensions/
2. Enable Developer mode
3. Click Load unpacked and select the extension/ directory

Browser Extension Features

• Scans inline and external JavaScript and stylesheets for API keys and tokens
• Scans localStorage and sessionStorage for leaked credentials
• Optional network response capture for comprehensive secret detection
• Results displayed in popup and dashboard

Security Notice

The browser extension removes Content Security Policy and CORS headers from visited pages to scan external resources. This weakens the security posture of sites you visit while the extension is active. Only enable during active security testing.

Building from Source

Standard Build (Vectorscan-accelerated)

By default Titus compiles with Vectorscan (ARM) / Hyperscan (x86) for SIMD-accelerated regex matching. This needs CGO, the C library, and pkg-config (which cgo uses to locate the library). make build checks for these and attempts to install anything missing via Homebrew / apt / dnf:

# Build the CLI binary with vectorscan acceleration (outputs to dist/titus)
make build

# Build the Burp Suite extension JAR
make build-burp

# Build the Chrome browser extension
make build-extension

# Run unit tests
make test

# Run integration tests
make integration-test

You'll see [vectorscan] N/N rules compiled for Hyperscan on startup when the accelerated engine is active.

To install the C library yourself instead of relying on auto-install:

# macOS (Homebrew)
brew install pkg-config vectorscan

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt-get install pkg-config libhyperscan-dev

# Fedora/RHEL
sudo dnf install pkgconf-pkg-config vectorscan-devel

# Or build vectorscan from source:
git clone --depth 1 --branch vectorscan/5.4.11 https://github.com/VectorCamp/vectorscan.git
cd vectorscan && cmake -B build -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local && cmake --build build && sudo cmake --install build

If you invoke go build directly (for example, when embedding Titus), pass the tag and enable CGO:

# macOS (Homebrew) — adjust PKG_CONFIG_PATH to your installed version
CGO_ENABLED=1 PKG_CONFIG_PATH="$(brew --prefix vectorscan)/lib/pkgconfig" \
  go build -tags vectorscan -o dist/titus ./cmd/titus

# Linux (system-installed)
CGO_ENABLED=1 go build -tags vectorscan -o dist/titus ./cmd/titus

Pure-Go Build (no C dependencies)

If you can't install the C library — or want a fully portable, static binary — build the pure-Go engine instead. Titus automatically falls back to it at runtime whenever vectorscan isn't compiled in:

# Portable pure-Go binary (no CGO, no vectorscan)
make build-pure

# Fully static binary
make build-static

Automatic Hyperscan database cache

Titus automatically serializes each successfully compiled Hyperscan database to the standard user cache. Later scanner instances with the exact same ordered rules and flags load that database instead of compiling it again. The cache file is the unmodified byte stream produced by Hyperscan's hs_serialize_database, and Titus loads it with hs_deserialize_database.

TITUS_CACHE_DIR can override the cache location. Cache writes are atomic and best-effort: an unavailable or read-only cache does not prevent scanning. A missing, corrupt, incompatible, or differently fingerprinted database triggers normal compilation and refreshes the cache when possible.

Serialized databases are architecture-, CPU-feature-, and Hyperscan-version- specific. Titus detects incompatible entries while deserializing and replaces them with a database compiled for the current runtime.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines on how to contribute to Titus.

License

Apache License 2.0 — see LICENSE.

Detection rules are derived from NoseyParker (Praetorian Security, Inc.) and Kingfisher (MongoDB, Inc.), both licensed under Apache 2.0. See NOTICE for full attribution.