How API Secret Sprawl, Spray and Leaks Land Companies in the News And How to Avoid It

Read full article here: https://corsha.com/blog/api-breaches-api-secrets-problem/?source=nhimg

API keys, tokens, and certificates have quietly become one of the weakest links in modern security. As organizations move faster with cloud-native architectures, CI/CD pipelines, and microservices, API secrets are sprawled across repositories, logs, collaboration tools, and test systems. This uncontrolled spread has made them easy targets for attackers, fueling a wave of high-profile breaches.

The Breach Pattern

From Imperva’s stolen AWS key (2019) to MGM, Ledger, Peloton and Travis CI, the common thread isn’t just the presence of an API secret, it’s how easily compromised that secret was. Long-lived, static credentials were often exposed in accessible systems, hard-coded in code, or leaked into logs. Once obtained, these secrets acted as “keys to the castle,” giving attackers direct access to sensitive environments and data.

Why Secrets Are So Vulnerable

• Exponential API growth - Cloud, serverless, and hybrid environments have multiplied the number of APIs.
• Weak management practices - Secrets get copied, shared, and hardcoded across development pipelines.
• Shift from human to machine risk - Automation moves identity risk from console logins to machine-to-machine APIs.

The Business Impact

These incidents underscore a systemic issue: enterprises are prioritizing speed but leaving security hygiene behind. The move to infrastructure as code and automated pipelines has amplified this risk, making secrets a critical attack surface for adversaries.

Best Practices

To stop “spraying and sprawling” secrets, organizations must:

• Replace long-lived static keys with dynamic, short-lived credentials.
• Continuously authenticate API calls instead of one-time validation.
• Embed secret security into CI/CD pipelines rather than treating it as an afterthought.
• Recognize machine identities as first-class citizens in Zero Trust strategies.

Bottom line

The next wave of breaches won’t be caused by humans forgetting passwords, it will be by machines exposing secrets. Strong secret hygiene and modern machine identity management are no longer optional; they are foundational to cloud and Zero Trust security.