Keys on Doormats: Exposed API Credentials on the Web

Abstract

API (Application Programming Interface) keys allow applications to authenticate themselves to third-party services. Inadvertent public exposure of these credentials can pose significant consequences, as adversaries can use them to gain privileged access to other services. In this paper, we measure API credential exposure on the web by analyzing 10M~rendered websites. Our findings reveal that API credential exposure on the web is widespread, affecting organizations such as global banks and core infrastructure providers. We identify 1,748~credentials for accessing 14~providers (e.g., cloud and payment services). Crucially, we demonstrate that these exposures are largely missed by static analysis. By characterizing web-specific exposure vectors and root causes, we find that 62\% of JavaScript-based exposures manifest exclusively within compiled deployment bundles, while 16\% propagate dynamically through third-party resource inclusions. Moreover, our longitudinal analysis shows these credentials often persist for months to years. We conclude by discussing our responsible disclosure efforts and outlining mitigations to secure web deployment pipelines in the future.