Twitter warns developers of possible API keys leak

Twitter is warning developers that their API keys, access tokens, and access token secrets may have been exposed in a browser’s cache.

Twitter is sending emails to developers to warn them that their API keys, access tokens, and access token secrets may have been exposed in a browser’s cache.

According to the social media firm, the browser used by developers may have cached the sensitive data while accessing certain pages on developer.twitter.com.

The developer.twitter.com portal allows developers to manage their apps and attached API keys, along with the access token and secret key for their account.

The social media firm has already fixed the problem by preventing the data to be cached in the browser, but his notification aims at informing users that other users accessed the machine used by developers in the past might have been able to access security tokens and API keys.

Obtaining security tokens and API keys could allow an app to access data for a specific account.

“Prior to the fix, if you used a public or shared computer to view your developer app keys and tokens on developer.twitter.com, they may have been temporarily stored in the browser’s cache on that computer.” reads the message send by Twitter via mail. “If someone who uses the same computer after you in that temporary timeframe knew how to access a browser’s cache, and knew what to look for, it is possible they could have accessed the keys and tokens that you viewed.”

“Depending on what pages you visited and what information you looked at, this could have included your app consumer API keys, as well as the user access token and secret for your own Twitter account.”

The company pointed out that there is no evidence that developer app keys and tokens were compromised, anyway, it recommends users to regenerate API keys and access tokens.

A similar issue was disclosed by Twitter in April, at the time the company announced that some private files sent via direct messages might have stored in the browser cache of Firefox browsers.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, privacy)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.