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6 minAuthorizationAPI keys

Why API keys keep leaking — and why rotation doesn't fix it

Rotation shortens the blast radius of a leaked key, but the key was already a standing credential. The structural fix is to stop sending one.

· Article

Every quarter brings another breach disclosure that traces back to an API key committed to a repository, scraped from a CI log, or copied into a ticket. The response is always the same: rotate the key, audit access, remind everyone about secrets hygiene.

Rotation is a mitigation, not a fix. A rotated key is still a bearer token — whoever holds it, holds the access. The interval between rotations is the attack window, and you only get to shorten it, never close it.

The standing-credential problem

An API key is valid from the moment it is created until the moment it is revoked. During that entire lifetime it can be copied, logged, exfiltrated, and replayed from anywhere. Nothing about the request proves the caller is the workload you issued the key to.

Trustplane removes the standing credential. Each request carries a short-lived cryptographic proof — issued for that caller, that action, that moment — and the proof is valid exactly once. There is nothing durable to steal.

What to do this week

You don't have to rip out every key at once. Put the boundary in front of one internal API, route one workload through proofs, and let the rest of the fleet migrate when it's ready. The goal isn't fewer keys on a dashboard — it's requests that prove themselves.

Every request proves itself — no keys, anywhere.

Put the boundary in front of one API and measure it yourself.