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Security good practices

Here are some techniques which will help you minimise the risk of leaked credentials and unauthorised access to your data.

Safekeeping private key

To prove the possession of a private key you don't have to present the key itself. This gives much greater security: unlike a shared secret, your credential never leaves your premises. Here are a few steps to ensure that:

  • private key should never be logged, added to URLs or displayed in any other way.
  • access to the private key should be limited.
  • ideally the service using the private key should not have the actual private key (so it's never present in its RAM). Instead it should ask a dedicated service to sign arbitrary data using the securely stored private key.

If there's even the slightest suspicion that the private key might have leaked - revoke the corresponding certificate immediately using the Web UI (or do a rotation to avoid downtime).

Safekeeping an access token

Same safekeeping rules apply. Don't log it, include it in URLs, or display it anywhere.