State of Secrets Sprawl Report 2023
On the other hand, generic detectors match a broad range of secrets, for example, a company email and a password that would end up hard-coded in a file.
In a detection strategy, generic detectors are essential to ensure that no valid secrets fall through the cracks of specific detectors. To maximize precision and avoid false positives, each uses a carefully crafted set of conditions (regarding the filename, the file path, the surrounding context, etc.)
In 2022, they accounted for 67% of the secrets detected, which shows their importance.