How should security teams handle API keys and tokens as part of identity governance?

Why This Matters for Security Teams

API keys and tokens are often treated as plumbing, but in practice they function as identities with standing access. That means they can authenticate, authorize, and move data without a human present. When teams manage them as simple secrets, they miss the governance requirements that matter most: ownership, scope, rotation, revocation, and monitoring. NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 frames this as a core identity and access problem, not just a secrets-handling task. NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 supports that view by tying access management to ongoing risk management rather than one-time issuance.

The practical risk is that API credentials usually outlive the business process that created them. They are copied into code, CI/CD variables, chat tools, integrations, and partner workflows, then forgotten. NHIMG’s Guide to the Secret Sprawl Challenge shows how quickly credentials spread across environments once they stop being centrally governed. A credential that is “just a token” in one team’s hands can become the easiest path to data exposure in another team’s incident review. In practice, many security teams discover stale API access only after the token has already been used outside its intended process.

How It Works in Practice

Treat each API key or token as a governed non-human identity record, with an owner, purpose, system scope, and expiration policy. That record should exist before issuance and remain accurate through its lifecycle. A strong control pattern is to combine least privilege with short-lived credentials, so a token is issued only for the task it must perform and revoked automatically when that task ends. Where possible, prefer workload-backed identity over long-lived shared secrets, because cryptographic identity is easier to trace and rotate than a static key embedded in multiple systems.

Operationally, security teams should build four controls around every credential:

• Assign a business owner and technical steward so no token is anonymous.
• Limit scope to the smallest API surface and environment required.
• Log issuance, use, and revocation so access can be audited later.
• Automate rotation and revocation when the app, integration, or vendor relationship changes.

This is especially important in cloud and SaaS integrations, where OAuth tokens, service tokens, and API keys can all act as delegated authority. NHIMG’s Ultimate Guide to NHIs is useful for framing those credentials as identities with lifecycle obligations, not disposable configuration values. For implementation detail, the NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 maps well to inventory, protect, detect, and respond activities that can be applied to secrets governance. These controls tend to break down when tokens are embedded in unmanaged third-party automations because ownership and revocation become unclear.

Common Variations and Edge Cases

Tighter credential governance often increases operational overhead, so organisations must balance faster developer workflows against stronger control of standing access. That tradeoff becomes visible in CI/CD pipelines, partner integrations, and legacy apps where teams prefer static keys because they are easy to deploy. Current guidance suggests that convenience should not justify indefinite credentials, but there is no universal standard for every platform yet.

Edge cases need different treatment. Shared API keys for legacy systems may require compensating controls such as network restrictions, stronger logging, and shorter rotation windows. OAuth tokens should be reviewed separately from internal service keys because delegated third-party access can expand blast radius quickly. NHIMG research on the Salesloft OAuth token breach shows why third-party token exposure can be more damaging than teams expect. The broader lesson from Top 10 NHI Issues is that secrets management and identity governance must converge. Where systems cannot support short-lived issuance, teams should at least enforce explicit ownership, constrained scope, and rapid revocation on change events.

Related resources from NHI Mgmt Group

• How should security teams govern API keys used for generative AI access?
• How do security teams know whether machine identity governance is working?
• How should security teams handle identity-related support requests across Slack and ticketing tools?
• What is the difference between role-based access and API key governance for NHI security?