Threat hunters find Google API keys still usable 23 minutes after deletion

Summary

You know your Google API key has leaked so you rush to disable it before bad actors can start running up charges on your account. Bad news: According to security researchers at Aikido, people can use the API keys for up to 23 minutes after a user deletes them, creating a window of opportunity that, when combined with Google’s automatic billing tier upgrades, can devastate victims.“We've identified a substantial window where an attacker with access to a leaked Google API key can continue to misuse that credential, after the user believes the key is revoked,” Joseph Leon, a security researcher with Aikido, told The Register. “In that window, an attacker could run up charges, pull sensitive files uploaded to Gemini, and exfiltrate cached context.” Aikido tested the gap during 10 trials over two days. In each trial, researchers created an API key, deleted it, and then sent three to five authenticated requests per second until no valid response came back for several minutes. From the time a user deletes the Google API key to when it can no longer be used propagates gradually across Google's infrastructure, he said. Some servers reject the key within seconds while others keep accepting it for 23 minutes. What this means is that an attacker holding a deleted key can repeatedly send requests until one reaches a server that has not caught up, Leon said. If Gemini is enabled on the project, they can dump files that were uploaded and exfiltrate cached conversations.The paper cited a similar problem researchers disclosed in December involving AWS keys. In that case, after deletion, attackers had a four-second window to exploit, and researchers showed how they could create new credentials in that time. “Four seconds was enough to matter on AWS,” Leon wrote in the paper. “Given recent attention to Google API keys used to access Gemini, we set out to measure how long Google's API key revocation window remains open.” Flaws can hit devs with huge surprise billsThe Register has repor...