API Key Security: Generation, Storage, and Rotation
Best practices for API key lifecycle management: how to generate cryptographically secure keys, scope them, and rotate safely.
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Tags: security, api, best-practices
API Key Security: Generate, Rotate, and Revoke Safely API keys are one of the most common credential types in modern software — they authenticate services, grant programmatic access to APIs, and power integrations. They're also one of the most commonly mishandled credentials. This guide covers the complete lifecycle: format, generation, storage, scope, rotation, and revocation. What Makes a Good API Key Format API keys should have three properties in their format: 1. Prefix for identification: A human-readable prefix helps identify what service a key belongs to and whether it's for production or testing. This prefix helps developers immediately recognize a key's purpose and helps secret scanners identify exposed keys. GitHub's token scanner pattern-matches on , , etc. to detect leaked…
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