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Rule Reference

SEC312lintai-ai-securitythreat-reviewsecuritystablemarkdownwarn

Markdown: private key material

Markdown contains committed private key material

Public lane
threat-review
Category
security
Provider
lintai-ai-security
Scope
per-file
Surface
markdown
Tier
stable
Severity
warn
Confidence
high
Detection
structural
Remediation
message only
How to read this lane

Explicit malicious, secret-bearing, or spyware-like review.

How to read this category

Strong exploit, secret, or unsafe-execution signal.

Activation Model

Preset Activation

These presets explain where this rule appears in the product experience.

threat-reviewsidecar lane
skillssurface preset

Lifecycle

Stable Lifecycle Contract

State

stable

Graduation rationale

Matches explicit committed private-key PEM markers inside agent markdown surfaces.

Deterministic signal basis

MarkdownSignals private-key marker observation across parsed markdown regions excluding placeholder examples.

Malicious corpus
skill-private-key-pem
Benign corpus
skill-public-key-pem-safe
structured evidence required remediation reviewed
Canonical note

Structural stable rule positioned as an explicit threat-review control: high-signal malicious, credential-bearing, or spyware-like behavior that stays opt-in rather than shaping the quiet default.

Nearby Signals

Related Rules

SEC101HTML comment: dangerous instructionsHidden HTML comment contains dangerous agent instructionsthreat-reviewauditmarkdown
SEC102Markdown: remote execution instructionMarkdown contains remote download-and-execute instruction outside code blocksthreat-reviewauditmarkdown
SEC103HTML comment: remote execution instructionHidden HTML comment contains remote download-and-execute instructionthreat-reviewauditmarkdown
SEC104Markdown: base64 executable payloadMarkdown contains a base64-decoded executable payload outside code blocksthreat-reviewauditmarkdown
SEC105Markdown: parent-directory file accessMarkdown instructions reference parent-directory traversal for file accessthreat-reviewauditmarkdown
SEC313Shell example: remote content piped to shellFenced shell example pipes remote content directly into a shellthreat-reviewauditmarkdown

Why It Matters ​

SEC312 flags markdown that contains committed private key material in PEM form.

Unlike general secret-pattern heuristics, this rule looks for real PEM private-key markers. That makes it a much stronger signal that sensitive key material has been committed into documentation or examples.

What Triggers ​

SEC312 triggers when markdown contains a PEM-style private key marker such as:

  • -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
  • -----BEGIN OPENSSH PRIVATE KEY-----
  • -----BEGIN EC PRIVATE KEY-----
  • -----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----

Example that triggers:

pem
-----BEGIN OPENSSH PRIVATE KEY-----
...
-----END OPENSSH PRIVATE KEY-----

Examples that stay clean:

  • public key PEM blocks such as -----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
  • search-string literals like memory search "BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY"
  • obviously redacted placeholders such as example private key

False Positives ​

This is one of the cleaner markdown security signals because it requires a real PEM private-key marker instead of a generic substring. Recent fixes explicitly stopped matching search-string literals like "BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY" without PEM framing.

This rule now lives in threat-review because committed private key material is high-signal and serious, but it should stay in an explicit credential-bearing review lane instead of defining the softer preview experience for markdown.

Remediation ​

Remove the private key from the repository, rotate the affected credential if it was real, and replace the example with a redacted placeholder or non-sensitive public material.