Secret key should be display once #506

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opened 2023-02-14 20:16:11 +00:00 by jpds · 1 comment

jpds commented

2023-02-14 20:16:11 +00:00

Contributor

The secret key part of the credentials pair should be displayed only at creation, and then hashed in the DB, never to be displayed to a user thereafter.

This is how AWS handles these too: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_credentials_access-keys.html

The secret key part of the credentials pair should be displayed only at creation, and then hashed in the DB, never to be displayed to a user thereafter. This is how AWS handles these too: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_credentials_access-keys.html

lx commented

2023-02-15 15:12:04 +00:00

Owner

The signature scheme of AWS requires that the servers knows the same secret as the client, this is how HMAC works. It's not a public key cryptography system. So we can't hash it in DB, that won't work.

We could show the secret only on creation, but then if it's still in db, an admin can technically see it any time by looking at the right place. So rather than pretending to be secure by hiding the fact that we have the secret, I think it's clearer for the users as it is currently.

We can still discuss whether displaying the secret key should be done only when a flag is passed on the CLI (for example), that would make sense.

The signature scheme of AWS requires that the servers knows the same secret as the client, this is how [HMAC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAC) works. It's not a public key cryptography system. So we can't hash it in DB, that won't work. We could show the secret only on creation, but then if it's still in db, an admin can technically see it any time by looking at the right place. So rather than pretending to be secure by hiding the fact that we have the secret, I think it's clearer for the users as it is currently. We can still discuss whether displaying the secret key should be done only when a flag is passed on the CLI (for example), that would make sense.