Your Shared Passwords Are Probably Already Exposed
That password you texted to your coworker? Here's why it's sitting in a database somewhere—and what you can do about it.
You needed to share a WiFi password with a guest. Or send login credentials to a teammate. Maybe you pasted an API key into Slack “just this once.”
We’ve all done it. And most of us assume these messages just… disappear into the digital void.
They don’t.
The uncomfortable truth about “private” messages
When you send a message through Slack, Discord, or even “encrypted” apps like WhatsApp, here’s what actually happens:
- Your message travels to a company’s server
- It gets stored in a database
- It sits there. Forever.
That password you shared six months ago? It’s still sitting in a Slack database somewhere. And Slack has been breached before.
This isn’t theoretical
In December 2025, a critical MongoDB vulnerability (CVE-2025-14847, nicknamed “MongoBleed”) exposed 87,000+ database instances worldwide. Attackers could leak sensitive heap memory—including passwords, API keys, and session tokens—without any authentication.
That same month, the Shai-Hulud 2.0 npm worm compromised 796 packages with over 20 million weekly downloads. It stole credentials from developers’ filesystems and cloud environments—AWS, Google Cloud, Azure—and spread to 25,000+ GitHub repositories in hours.
“But I use Pastebin—it’s anonymous!”
Here’s where it gets worse.
Traditional pastebins like Pastebin.com store everything in plain text. No encryption. No protection. Just your sensitive data sitting on a server, waiting to be:
- Scraped by bots hunting for exposed credentials
- Leaked in the next data breach
- Accessed by anyone with server access
What actually keeps your data safe?
There’s only one approach that actually works: zero-knowledge encryption.
Here’s the difference:
Regular pastebin: You → Server stores your data → Anyone with access can read it
Zero-knowledge: You encrypt → Server stores gibberish → Only you have the key
With zero-knowledge, even if hackers breach the server, they get nothing useful. Just encrypted noise.
The key stays with you
The critical part of zero-knowledge is that the encryption key never touches the server.
When you use CloakBin, the key lives in the URL fragment (the part after the #). Browsers don’t send URL fragments to servers—it’s a security feature built into how the web works.
“But wait—if the key is in the URL, how do I share it safely?”
Great question. If you paste a CloakBin link into Discord, the key is right there in the URL. Anyone who sees the message sees everything.
The solution: password protection.
When you add a password to your paste, CloakBin adds a second encryption layer. Now even if someone intercepts the full URL, they still can’t decrypt without the password.
1. Create a paste with password protection enabled
2. Share the CloakBin link on Discord, Slack, email—anywhere
3. Send the password through a different channel (text message, phone call, Signal)
Two channels = much harder to intercept both.
This is called two-factor sharing. The link can travel through insecure channels because it’s useless without the password traveling separately.
What should you actually do?
Next time you need to share something sensitive:
- Don’t paste it in Slack or Discord – Those messages live forever on company servers
- Don’t use regular pastebins – Plain text storage is a breach waiting to happen
- Use CloakBin with password protection – Share the link anywhere, send the password separately
The bottom line
The password you shared “just this once” is probably still sitting in a database somewhere. With 87,000+ MongoDB instances exposed in a single December breach, every unencrypted message is a liability waiting to surface.
Zero-knowledge encryption isn’t paranoia—it’s just how sensitive data should always have been handled.