GitLab Watchman is an application that uses the GitLab API to detect exposed secrets and personal data. It also enumerates the GitLab instance for any useful information.

It searches GitLab for internally shared projects and looks at:

• Code
• Commits
• Wiki pages
• Issues
• Merge requests
• Milestones
• Notes
• Snippets

For the following data:

• GCP keys and service account files
• AWS keys
• Azure keys and service account files
• Google API keys
• Slack API tokens & webhooks
• Private keys (SSH, PGP, any other misc private key)
• Exposed tokens (Bearer tokens, access tokens, client_secret etc.)
• S3 config files
• Tokens for services such as Heroku, PayPal and more
• Passwords in plaintext
• and more

You can run GitLab Watchman to look for results going back as far as:

• 24 hours
• 7 days
• 30 days
• All time

This means after one deep scan, you can schedule GitLab Watchman to run regularly and only return results from your chosen timeframe.

GitLab Watchman can enumerate potentially useful information from a GitLab instance:

• Instance metadata
• Information on the calling user/token being used
• Output all users to CSV file
• Output all projects to CSV file
• Output all groups to CSV file

GitLab Watchman uses custom YAML signatures to detect matches in GitLab. These signatures are pulled from the central Watchman Signatures repository. Slack Watchman automatically updates its signature base at runtime to ensure its using the latest signatures to detect secrets.

GitLab Watchman gives the following logging options:

• Terminal-friendly Stdout
• JSON to Stdout

GitLab Watchman defaults to terminal-friendly stdout logging if no option is given. This is designed to be easier for humans to read.

JSON logging is also available, which is perfect for ingesting into a SIEM or other log analysis platforms.

JSON formatted logging can be easily redirected to a file as below:

gitlab-watchman --timeframe a --all --output json >> gitlab_watchman_log.json 

GitLab Watchman uses the v4 API, and works with GitLab Enterprise Edition versions:

• 13.0 and above - Yes

• GitLab.com - Yes

• 12.0 - 12.10 - Maybe, untested but if using v4 of the API then it could work

To search the scopes:

• blobs
• wiki_blobs
• commits

The GitLab instance must have Elasticsearch configured, and be running Enterprise Edition with a minimum GitLab Starter or Bronze Licence.

To run GitLab Watchman, you will need a GitLab personal access token.

You can create a personal access token in the GitLab GUI via Settings -> Access Tokens -> Add a personal access token

The token needs permission for the following scopes:

api

Note: Personal access tokens act on behalf of the user who creates them, so I would suggest you create a token using a service account, otherwise the app will have access to your private repositories.

You also need to provide the URL of your GitLab instance.

GitLab Watchman will get the GitLab token and URL from the environment variables GITLAB_WATCHMAN_TOKEN and GITLAB_WATCHMAN_URL.

You can install the latest stable version via pip:

python3 -m pip install gitlab-watchman

Or build from source yourself. Download the release source files, then from the top level repository run:

python3 -m build
python3 -m pip install --force-reinstall dist/*.whl

GitLab Watchman is also available from the Docker hub as a Docker image:

docker pull papermountain/gitlab-watchman:latest

You can then run GitLab Watchman in a container, making sure you pass the required environment variables:

// help
docker run --rm papermountain/gitlab-watchman -h

// scan all
docker run --rm -e GITLAB_WATCHMAN_TOKEN=abc123 -e GITLAB_WATCHMAN_URL=https://example.gitlab.com papermountain/gitlab-watchman --timeframe a --all
docker run --rm --env-file .env papermountain/gitlab-watchman --timeframe a --all

GitLab Watchman will be installed as a global command, use as follows:

usage: gitlab-watchman [-h] --timeframe {d,w,m,a} [--output {json,stdout}] [--version] [--all] [--blobs] [--commits] [--wiki-blobs] [--issues]
                   [--merge-requests] [--milestones] [--notes] [--snippets] [--enumerate] [--debug] [--verbose]

Finding exposed secrets and personal data in GitLab

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --output {json,stdout}, -o {json,stdout}
                        Where to send results
  --version, -v         show program's version number and exit
  --all, -a             Find everything
  --blobs, -b           Search code blobs
  --commits, -c         Search commits
  --wiki-blobs, -w      Search wiki blobs
  --issues, -i          Search issues
  --merge-requests, -mr
                        Search merge requests
  --milestones, -m      Search milestones
  --notes, -n           Search notes
  --snippets, -s        Search snippets
  --enumerate, -e       Enumerate this GitLab instance for users, groups, projects.Output will be saved to CSV files
  --debug, -d           Turn on debug level logging
  --verbose, -V         Turn on more verbose output for JSON logging. This includes more fields, but is larger

required arguments:
  --timeframe {d,w,m,a}
                        How far back to search: d = 24 hours w = 7 days, m = 30 days, a = all time

You may be interested in the other apps in the Watchman family:

• Slack Watchman
• Slack Watchman for Enterprise Grid
• GitHub Watchman

The source code for this project is released under the GNU General Public Licence. This project is not associated with GitLab.