Azure Key Vault Service Principle Authentication Failing - azure-keyvault

Been struggling with this for a day, and am finally reaching out for help. I'm attempting to use Azure Key Vault to store some configs in a Typescript application. I've created a service principle in Azure Active Directory and a Key Vault. In the Key Vault, I've gone to Role Assignments and given the app the role Key Vault Secrets User (which should provide list and read permissions). From what I can tell, my app is successfully authenticating, but when it requests a secret, it is getting a 403. What step could I be missing?
Log which suggests the authentication was successful
azure:identity:info IdentityClient: [https://login.microsoftonline.com/38e3589f-a40f-4fe6-beee-f4028442450e/oauth2/v2.0/token] token acquired, expires on 1593536920022
Log with the failure
The user, group or application 'appid=355ca45f-a94f-43e6-9234-65c713965c9b;oid=524f25bb-ee3f-4216-8474-1f01fd79f1f8;iss=https://sts.windows.net/38e3589f-a40f-4fe6-beee-f4028442450e/' does not have secrets get permission on key vault '<MyVault>;location=westus2'. For help resolving this issue, please see https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2125287

The step I missed was adding an Access Policy. I don't understand the difference between Access control (IAM) and Access Policies, so I don't understand why both are required. Hope this helps someone else.

I don't understand the difference between Access control (IAM) and Access Policies, so I don't understand why both are required.
Actually, to access the secret in the keyvault, the permission in Access Policies is enough.
The access of the keyvault is divided into two parts, management plane(Access control (IAM)) and data plane(Access Policies).
The permissions in management plane let you manage the keyvault, e.g. set Key Vault tags, the permissions in data plane let you do operations on the secret, key, certificate.
In your case, even if you give the app(service principal) an RBAC role in the Access control (IAM), it will not have the permission to access the secret, so you need to add it to the access policies.
Something you should note is some roles have the permission to add access policies, e.g. Contributor, it means if you give the role to your app, it will be able to add itself to the access policies. But if it does not add itself to the access policies, it will not have the data plane permission.
For more details, you could refer to this doc - Secure access to a key vault.

Related

Azure App Configuration, Key Vault and client certificate credentials

I am currently working on a few services that uses keyvault, authenticating with ClientCertificateCredential / Registered Apps. These are running on-premise.
Looking into using Azure App Configuration in a similar way, combined with keyvault. So a couple of questions arises:
Can i authorize against App Configuration the same way as with KeyVault, using ClientCertificateCredential ? If yes, how ?
If not, another option is to use a connection string against App Config. However, this is a secret, and should be stored in keyvault (absolutely not in appsettings.json). That means I have to access keyvault before setting up App Config. Is there a clean way to do this ?
Or, perhaps there is something else I should consider.
• Yes, you can surely authorize against App configuration as you do against key vault to retrieve client secrets, connection strings and other sensitive information with the help of managed identities. Managed identities create a service principal for the said application when enabled depending on the user to be assigned to that application or directly to the application itself as a system assigned managed identity that is created for the lifetime of that application.
By leveraging managed identity, it eliminates the need for an access token that contains secrets. Your code can access the App Configuration store using only the service endpoint. You can embed this URL in your code directly without exposing any secret.
• For more information on configuring managed identity to access the application configuration without exposing or leveraging any type of access token, please refer to the documentation link below for more details: -
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-app-configuration/howto-integrate-azure-managed-service-identity?tabs=core5x

Are there any security concerns with sharing the client secrets of a Google API project?

I'm working on a project using the YouTube Data API. The Python script I'm running uses a client secrets JSON file, which I presume is for verifying the account owner. If I am having issues with it and need assistance, are there any security concerns with sharing this publicly? Is it even alright if it's held privately in a private github repository?
If you check the Google Developer TOS which you agreed to when you created your account on Google developer console
It is against the TOS for you to share this file with anyone. This is secret and only intended for the developer or team of developers who created it. This pertains to the entire client secret json file you download from Google developer console or google cloud console.
Again DO not share your google secret file. No matter what the accepted answer stays about how problematic it may or may not, nor does it matter what type of client it is. Sharing the client secret file would be volatilizing the TOS you agreed to.
My corrections for another answer on this thread here
The answer in question has some statements that i strongly disagree with and feel may cause confusion to developers. Let me start by saying I am not an employee of Google, my comments are my own and from my experience with working googles oauth / identity server server for eight+ years and contact with google identity team. I am concerned that some of the information in the answer above may confuse some developers. Rather than just saying dont share them the other question tries incorrectly IMO to explain why it wouldn't be so bad to share them. I will explain why you should never share them beyond the fact that its against googles TOS.
The security implications depend on the type of client secret. You can tell the difference by whether the key in the JSON file is installed or web.
The type of client has no effect upon I how great the security risk would be. If we ignore the definition of what a constitutes a security risk completely and just say that any chance anyone could get access to a users account or authenticate a user on behalf of the project, would constitute to big of a security risk then there is no difference.
Using the following command I could authenticate myself all i need is the credentials file for your project
https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth?client_id={clientid}.apps.googleusercontent.com&redirect_uri=urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob&scope=https://www.googleapis.com/auth/analytics.readonly&response_type=code
This would only work 100% of the time for an installed application. Why is this bad if i am just authenticating my own user. I could then use my evil powers to send so many requests against the API that the target google developer project would be locked down by Google for spamming.
If i have stolen another users login and password i can login to them from your Google developer project and i have access to their data and Google thinks its you hacking them.
This is a little harder with a web application due to the Redirect URI, However a lot of developers include add localhost as a redirect uri when in development and forget to take it out (Please never leave localhost as a redirect uri when you are in proudcution) . So in the event you have left redirect URI as a valid redirect URI in a web browser client then I can do the exact same thing.
Remember I am now able to authenticate users based upon your project to access mostly my own data. However if you have also set up access to client data for example via google drive I may be able to access that as well. (Note: Im not Sure on this one i havent actually tried.)
If i have manged though man in the middle attack or some other means to get a users refresh token, and I have the client secret file I can now access users data because I can create new access tokens with my refresh token for as long as i want. This is probably a bit harder to achieve.
Web application secrets
If the client secret is of the web type, then yes: you should absolutely not post it, and invalidate it if it gets exposed. This would allow a malicious entity to impersonate your backend and perform actions on your users' accounts on your behalf.
As stated above this will only be the case if the developer in question has left the redirect uri open for localhost or the person who now has your client secret file also has access to your web server. One very important fact is that if you have left localhost open i can then put up my own website using your credentials and set it up so it look exactly like your website. Users then think they are logging into Your super awesome app when in fact they are logging into Hacker Super awesome app giving them access to the users data. Again google thinks its you hacking them.
Installed application secrets
If the client secret is an installed-type secret, then it's less problematic to share privately, as it doesn't grant the sorts of abilities a web application secret does, such as the ability to authenticate as users who grant your application permission to access their data. As the documentation notes, "in this context, the client secret is obviously not treated as a secret."
This is completely false Installed applications give the exact same permissions as web applications there is no difference with-regard to Oauth2 access an access token is an access token no matter if it was created for an installed application or a web application.
As stated above security risk with giving out access to your installed application this is actually worse. As there are no redirect uris with installed applications. Anyone that has access to your client secret file could authenticate users who assume they are you because they are being shown your consent screen. Not only is your Google developer project being hjacked but your reputation to your users who think that they are authenticating to Super awesome app and in fact they are not granting the person who has stolen your credentials access to their data.
I would like to add one last thing. If you give another person your project credentials. The client secret json file. You are giving them access to make calls on your behalf. If you have bulling set up lets say against google maps api. You will be charged for the calls they make.
I hope this helps to clear up some of the confusion related to the accepted anwser.
Yes, this is a problem. It's called a "client secret" for a reason. If it does become exposed, you should take steps to invalidate it and get a new one so that someone doesn't try to impersonate you.
Short answer: the security implications depend on the type of secret, but you should not share it publicly for other reasons, including the Terms of Service, which state that:
You will keep your credentials confidential and make reasonable efforts to prevent and discourage other API Clients from using your credentials. Developer credentials may not be embedded in open source projects.
The security implications depend on the type of client secret. You can tell the difference by whether the key in the JSON file is installed or web.
Web application secrets
If the client secret is of the web type, then yes: you should absolutely not post it, and invalidate it if it gets exposed. This would allow a malicious entity to impersonate your backend and perform actions on your users' accounts on your behalf.
Installed application secrets
If the client secret is an installed-type secret, then it's less problematic to share privately, as it doesn't grant the sorts of abilities a web application secret does, such as the ability to authenticate as users who grant your application permission to access their data. As the documentation notes, "in this context, the client secret is obviously not treated as a secret."
You still should not post it publicly on GitHub, a Stack Overflow question, or other public places, as posting it publicly increases the probability of someone copying your code in its entirety or otherwise using your client secret in their own project, which might cause problems and likely would run afoul of the Terms of Service. People trying to reproduce your issue could pretty easily generate credentials to drop into your code—credentials are a reasonable thing to leave out of a question.

Managing fine-grained access to credentials on Azure Key Vault

I am trying to limit access to the secrets/certificates so that only certain users can view/access some of them.
How do I go about doing that?
limit access to the secrets/certificates so that only certain users can view/access some of them.
In short, it's impossible.
You can limit only certain user to access all the secrets or certificates, other than access some of the secrets.
Simply find the Azure Key Vault in the Azure portal UI, click Access policies under settings, and add a new access policy. You can define fine-grained permissions for accessing Key, Secret, and Certificates (which Azure Key Vault can also store, by the way). However, when you allow some user to access your key vault secret, they will access all the secrets in azure Key vault.
For more details, you could refer to this article.

Application access to users specific Key Vault on behalf of the user

I am trying to get access to users specific Key Vaults secrets on behalf of the user and am a bit confused about how the Azure IAM access polices work together with Key Vaults access polices. What I want to do is grant the Application access to users specific Key Vault.
Reading the Azure Key Vault docs it seems that "User plus application access/compound identity" would allow me to do that. However I can't seem to find any examples of this implementation in Azure docs. I thought that "Select Principal" = user and "Authorized application" = service_principal configuration in Key Vault "Add access policy" tab specifies what application can access which Key Vault on users behalf but "Authorized application" option does not seem to have any effect.
I am using App/Service Principal OAuth authorization to check if the user is in AD graph and after that am trying to access users specific Key Vault on users behalf.
Access policies that I have currently tested and are not working for me:
Configutation where Service Principal do not have Delegated permissions to users Azure Key Vault service
Can't access Key Vault no matter what is IAM or Key Vault access policy - Azure will give "Consent required error" on token request.
Configurations where Service Principal has Delegated permissions to Azure Key Vault Service
When Key Vaults access policy has been set for user/user and service principal, I can access Key Vaults secrets on users behalf.
This however applies to any of the Key Vaults that user has, which I do not want.
Could anyone point me in the right direction on how to access users specific Key Vault on behalf of the user?

Azure Keyvault: Getting forbidden error if user is having direct access via Group to Key Vault

When we are trying to retrieve secret from keyvault using KeyVaultClient (c#) we are getting 403 access denied even though the same user can access the vault secret from Azure Portal. If we give explicit access to the user on key vault then we are able to retrieve the secrets. This looks like an issue and please help on possible workarounds.
You may not have a service principal created for your application yet. If so, create that first and then use the object ID of the service principal to authorize access for the application. If you are using a VM you also need to add the VM service principal to the Keyvault's policies.
Take a look at this sample code to see how to create application and service principal and give permission to the service principal.
This was due to while generating token Group claims were not getting set and hence key vault was checking only of direct permissions. Once we enable group claims by following these steps from here then it is working fine now ..

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