lacework-global-242
Rotate API Keys Every 90 Days (Automated)
Profile Applicability
• Level 1
Description
Best practices recommend rotating API keys every 90 days.
Rationale
Security risks involved in using API-Keys are listed below:
- API keys are simple encrypted strings
- API keys do not identify the user or the application making the API request
- API keys are typically accessible to clients, making it easy to discover and steal an API key
Because of these potential risks, Google recommends using the standard authentication flow instead of API Keys. However, there are limited cases where API keys are more appropriate. For example, if there is a mobile application that needs to use the Google Cloud Translation API, but doesn't otherwise need a backend server, API keys are the simplest way to authenticate to that API.
Once a key is stolen, it has no expiration, meaning it may be used indefinitely unless the project owner revokes or regenerates the key. Rotating API keys will reduce the window of opportunity for an access key that is associated with a compromised or terminated account to be used.
API keys should be rotated to ensure that data cannot be accessed with an old key that might have been lost, cracked, or stolen.
Impact
Regenerating Key
may break existing client connectivity as the client will try to connect with older API keys they have stored on devices.
Audit
From Console:
- Go to
APIs & Services\Credentials
usinghttps://console.cloud.google.com/apis/credentials
- In the section
API Keys
, for every key ensure thecreation date
is less than 90 days.
Remediation
From Console:
- Go to
APIs & Services\Credentials
usinghttps://console.cloud.google.com/apis/credentials/
. - In the section
API Keys
, Click theAPI Key Name
. The API Key properties display on a new page. - Click
Regenerate Key
to rotate API key. - Click
Save
. - Repeat steps 2,3,4 for every API key not rotated in the last 90 days.
Do not set HTTP referrers
to wild-cards ( or .[TLD] or .[TLD]/) allowing access to any/wide HTTP referrers
Do not set IP addresses
and referrer to any host (0.0.0.0 or 0.0.0.0/0 or ::0)
Additional Information
There is no option to automatically regenerate (rotate) API keys periodically.