VNX-SEC-076: Telegram bot API token

Reports a whole Telegram Bot API token (bot id, a colon and a 35-character AA... secret) in any file, excluding placeholders, low-entropy bodies, environment references and test files.

Field	Value
Rule ID	`VNX-SEC-076`
Severity	Critical
SARIF level	`error`
Kind	`secrets`
Languages	Any file
CWE	CWE-798
CAPEC	CAPEC-191
ATT&CK	T1552.001
CWSS vector	`CWSS:1.0/TI:C/AP:A/AL:A/IC:N/FC:LT/RP:N/RL:A/AV:I/AS:N/IN:A/SC:A/BI:C/DI:H/EX:H/EC:N/P:W`
Tags	`secrets` `telegram` `credentials`
Source	`internal/sast/rules/vnx-sec-076.rego`

Overview

This rule reports a Telegram Bot API token: the bot’s numeric id (8 to 10 digits), a colon and the 35-character secret that begins AA, quoted, assigned, inside an api.telegram.org/bot<token>/ URL or in a .env file. The token is redacted in the finding’s snippet.

Why This Matters

Hardcoded telegram bot api token values are routinely scraped by automated bots within minutes of a public push, and then used to access the account, exfiltrate data, or pivot into downstream services. Once the credential is in git history it is permanently in third-party hands.

What Gets Flagged

# FLAGGED: token passed to the bot framework
TOKEN = "<bot id>:AA<33 characters>"
app = ApplicationBuilder().token(TOKEN).build()

# FLAGGED: token inside the Bot API URL
curl -s "https://api.telegram.org/bot<bot id>:AA<33 characters>/sendMessage" -d chat_id=-100123456

Not flagged:

A bot id on its own, and lookalikes such as 20240115:AAPL.
Placeholder or low-entropy bodies (123456789:AAxxxx..., AAAA...).
Environment references (os.environ["TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN"]).
Test, fixture, vendored and generated files.

VNX-SEC-728 reports the same token.

Remediation

Revoke the leaked credential in the provider’s console immediately.
Replace with a short-lived alternative, OAuth 2.0 access tokens, IAM role assumption, OIDC federation, wherever the platform supports it.
Store the new credential in a secrets manager (AWS Secrets Manager, HashiCorp Vault, GitHub Actions secrets, Doppler).
Audit the provider’s access logs for activity you did not initiate between the leak and the revocation.
Purge from git history with git filter-repo or BFG, then re-scan with gitleaks/truffleHog to confirm no other secrets remain.
Enable push protection so future commits are blocked at the developer machine.

References

Suppressing this rule

Put a nosec comment on the line, or on line 1 to cover the whole file. Use the comment marker of the file’s language (#, //, -- or ;):

# nosec vnx-sec-076
// nosec vnx-sec-076

Or record an ignore rule: vulnetix ignore add --rule vnx-sec-076 --reason "...". See Suppressing findings.