Home Depot GitHub token exposed for a year, granted access to internal systems
74 comments
·December 12, 2025VTimofeenko
Given the absolute state of their website on mobile it's hardly surprising. It's faster to find an employee and ask them where an item is at instead of waiting for the search to finish, see that it the "current store" now points to a random location somewhere in a different state, pick the correct store and re-do the search
craftkiller
If you go to the home depot page for torque wrenches and click the filter for drive size, you get this list:
1/2 in
1/4 in
1 in
3/8 in
3/4 in
Specialty
0.5
0.25
1
0.375
0.75
tomjakubowski
I had to check what the gold standard McMaster-Carr does: their torque wrench drive size widget is sorted 1/4", 3/8", 1/2", 3/4", 1", 1 1/2". Glorious. https://www.mcmaster.com/products/torque-wrenches/
jjice
I'd expect nothing less from them. The right thing to do here is to implement a sorting key for different categories here. Since McMaster-Carr seems to be going to a category when you search, they seem to have better control over the available filters.
I've found that on a site like Amazon or Walmart that'll let you do a more freeform sort, the filter options becomes absolutely god awful.
Well done by McMaster-Carr. I assume they control their inventory a bit more than a marketplace like Home Depot, Walmart, or Amazon, so that's also an advantage.
rockostrich
McMaster-Carr's website is actually pretty impressive given how unassuming it is. It does a ton of pre-loading on hover and caching to make it feel like you're just navigating a static site. I didn't even realize that the page had a loading state until I enabled throttling from my network tab and immediately clicked on a link as soon as I hovered over it.
progbits
Mouser et al also do it right for mixed unit lists, eg. component dimensions are shown in their specified units but sorted as: 11mm, 12mm, 0.5in, 13mm, ...
hinkley
Is it weird that I kinda want to work there?
bluedino
Now look up impact wrenches.
1/2 in
1 in
1/4 in
3/8 in
3/4 in
7/16 inrpcope1
> 7/16 in
I had a major WTF moment there, until I realized that's probably for a hex driver (and thus something totally different than what I think of when someone says "impact wrench").
SoftTalker
It's probably a default ordering or an ordering by an unshown database ID value. It's a small enough set that it doesn't really matter for practical purposes, but I guess it does betray a lack of attention to detail.
wiredfool
It’s simple alphabetic.
sowbug
Or when the site tells you your store doesn't have a part in stock, but neglects to tell you that they do have 350 of the identical part, different brand, in stock. Because who would ever buy a 1/2-inch close Halex rigid conduit close nipple in-store right now when they could wait a few days for a 1/2-inch close Commercial Electric rigid conduit nipple?
freedomben
Indeed, Home Depot's software is generally so bad. I remember around 2017/2018 time frame when they started showing up to big tech conferences (especially K8s and React.js conferences) really trying to modernize. I spent a few minutes talking to the people manning the booth (which were surprisingly high ranking in the company, at least by title), and came away thinking "I'm glad you're making an effort, but y'all really have no idea what you're doing." The left hand and the right hand had completely different ideas/priorities about how to accomplish their goals. I didn't want to make any judgments on a simple conversation at a conference, but at this point I think time has shown that it was pretty representative of how they were approaching it internally, and unsurprisingly it did not work out super well.
Now that said, I don't want to minimize the difficulty in modernizing software at a corp like HD. It's wildly more difficult than most people can appreciate. I've consulted for companies trying to do it, and there are lots of challenges with legacy systems, migrations, and plenty of non-technical challenges as well.
Shout out to Wal-mart for genuinely kicking ass at this though. I'm quickly becoming an Onn fanboy. Genearlly speaking, great products at great prices, from their USB cables up to their smart speakers and more. You can really tell from the product design and implementation that they are letting the nerds geek out and have fun! That in turn enables me to do the same :-)
rpcope1
I'll bet money any new React/K8s/${WEBSCALE} stuff they're building is still just a wrapper over the same old inventory management they've been using for years...probably something like JDEdwards on AS/400.
porphyra
I feel like the home depot website is fine. It's a lot better than most other shops, I've had a good experience finding the aisle and location of items, and it's generally accurate with the amount in stock at each location. If you didn't enable precise location or have bad cell signal then that is hardly the fault of the website.
VTimofeenko
I will not argue with the stock part. When the search _does_ finish, stock info is usually correct IME.
What grinds my gears is the speed of this search, regardless of the phone reception. Even on the desktop it feels like they have a bunch of interns running a sneakernet. Or the website is laden with pointless javascript that slows everything down before the search is actually performed.
I go to the same Home Depot every time. (Well I don't if I can help it, but that's beside the point). There is no reason they cannot store the preferred store in the localStorage or cookies or wherever else. Other stores have figured this out.
patagurbon
Their internal setup was also an absolute mess as of 4 years ago. A horrific hybrid of extremely legacy systems and new systems created around COVID which are both nicer and also deeply lacking in features we needed as floor workers.
I understand that upgrading and migrating to new systems takes time but this process never seemed like it involved anyone on the ground.
garyfirestorm
its generally in HD stores you never have cell signal or wifi
freedomben
This is definitely true and makes the experience shittier than it otherwise would be, but even with a great signal/connection it frequently loads so slowly that I've long run out of patience.
brewtide
I bought a water heater that had a large (1k!) instant rebate that you had to scan, sign up on website and show the emailed coupon to the person during cashing out. Took me 25 minutes wandering around the store to get enough reception to actually do this process. Made me chuckle, thinking how having it online only but before point of sale in the store was such a terrible, terrible idea.
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rigrassm
Nah, I use both the website and their shitty web wrapper app on a regular basis and it's been a dumpster fire for at least the last 2-3 years. 3-5 years ago when they first rebuilt everything it was much more pleasant but at this point it's clear no one is maintaining it and have just let it bloat and rot
hinkley
> the "current store" now points to a random location somewhere in a different state
I thought that was just me. It gets the first, maybe the second digit of the zip code right and that's about it.
kldavis4
+1
also, when I'm in my local store it seems like cell connection goes to shit for some reason and then I have to jump on their in store wifi in order to search their website
paleotrope
They probably don't have any repeaters. All those metal shelves are going to interfere with the signal. I have the same experience.
inferiorhuman
Their in-store WiFi is a repeater more or less. It's one of those bullshit forced auto-join networks that you can't opt out of (at least on iOS). Because that's not a massive vector for phishing or anything.
fn-mote
Always wondered if this was a deliberate strategy to enable more tracking… but it sounds way beyond the ability of their corporate planning.
TallGuyShort
I've never had an employee know what a tool is, much less where to find it. All they're doing is doing this process on a slower, ruggedized phone.
I literally watched someone Google "masonry bit" right in front of me.
patagurbon
The store I worked at for a while had a surprising number of real bearded experts, alongside at least a few younger folks who really understood the internal systems. It was great, but clearly was eroding as the experts retired and young folks with no experience were hired to replace them.
darrylb42
Though they should be on in store wifi. The big steel box store is a faraday cage that doesn't let the internet in.
Rebelgecko
Someone made their own version of the HD app that works much better:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Tools/comments/1opufvq/a_lightweigh...
indigodaddy
Wow, the non-response/communication at any time by Home Depot to all parties involved in trying to help them, is staggering.
ultrarunner
Too busy going all-in on Flock cameras. This was the nail in the coffin for me.
cyral
Not entirely unsurprising due to the theft issues they face
xeromal
Yeah, I'm not sure why so many people seem pro-theft for a lack of a better term. I don't believe they are but there's so much resistance to locking up high value items especially if they're valuable ones.
SoftTalker
Seems that all the big box stores are doing that. Lowes does it here for sure.
el_benhameen
If you’ve ever tried to find an employee in one of their stores, this won’t be very surprising.
reactordev
Go in knowing exactly what you want and you’ll be asked by no less than 3 employees if you need help finding anything.
AznHisoka
Purely anecdotal, but I found Lowe's generally had much better customer service. But maybe it's just where I live
RankingMember
Yeah I think it'll be location dependent. FWIW I've got both by me and they're equally terrible as far as the availability and knowledge of their employees. Lowes edges out Home Depot a tiny bit for me simply because I've never been accosted by a sanctioned in-store roaming sales person for solar or siding at Lowes (yet!).
tclancy
That was true for a long time, but before that, Home Depot's customer service was terrific too. I think that's a cost that gets cut by a focus on shareholder value. Local hardware stores are still going to be better, with the caveat it may take a decade before they smile when you walk in.
barbazoo
Opposite data point, where I live, there's lots of people working the floor. I'm usually asked if I need help at least once when I'm there. Maybe it depends on the store or whatever the umbrella org is.
rao-v
I’m surprised that GitHub, OpenAI etc. doesn’t have automation to scan the usual surfaces for hashes of their access tokens.
It seems like a cheap and simple thing to offer your customers a little extra safety.
Anybody interested in starting a platform agnostic service to do this?
PokestarFan
GitHub already has a program to scan for keys, since publishing Discord tokens by mistake used to get the token immediately revoked and a DM from the system account saying why
dudeWithAMood
I think there are crawlers that do that. Somehow I accidentally had a commit with an openai key in it, and when I published an open source repo with that commit within ~20 seconds I got an email from openai someone had retired my exposed key.
esafak
Where was this token found, in an open source repo? There are numerous ways to scan commits, for free even in open source repos: https://docs.github.com/en/code-security/secret-scanning/int...
freedomben
They definitely do have automation to scan for this already. I've seen plenty of alerts (fortunately all false positives that triggered on example keys that weren't real). I don't know how comprehensive it is, but it does exist.
tecleandor
They at least scan GitHub for all kind of exposed tokens in public repositories, and even have partnerships with the companies where you can connect with those tokens (SaaS, PaaS...) to verify they're valid and even revoke them automatically if necessary.
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tclancy
Man, a year to grab all the Home Depot 2x4s you want! Someone could have built a sphere with those.
jgbuddy
"Open Source Home Depot" has a nice ring to it
>When reached by TechCrunch on December 5, Home Depot spokesperson George Lane acknowledged receipt of our email but did not respond to follow-up emails asking for comment. The exposed token is no longer online, and the researcher said the token’s access was revoked soon after our outreach.
>
>We also asked Lane if Home Depot has the technical means, such as logs, to determine if anyone else used the token during the months it was left online to access any of Home Depot’s internal systems. We did not hear back.
As soon as they realized that the researcher had contacted "the media", they probably escalated internally to their legal team before anyone else, who told them to shut up.
The response, if one ever comes, will be a communication dense in lawyer-speak that admits no fault whatsoever.