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# Deploy keys assigned with write permissions

## Rule Details

|                       |                                |
| --------------------- | ------------------------------ |
| Cortex AppSec Rule ID | APPSEC\_CICD\_26               |
| Category              | Pipeline Based Access Controls |
| Severity              | LOW                            |

## Impact

Deploy keys created on GitHub repositories are assigned with write permissions. An attacker that obtains access to a deploy key with write permissions has excessive abilities on the repository, such as editing its code, creating, editing and deleting releases, and uploading packages.

## Recommended Solution - Buildtime

To minimize the risk of a stolen deploy key to be used by an attacker, it is recommended to reduce the level of permissions of all deploy keys to read-only when write permissions are not necessary for the proper flow of the pipeline. To achieve this, for each deploy key:

1. Create a new deploy key in the same repository the current key was created on, and assign it with read-only permissions in the creation process. The same public key can be used to avoid creating a new private key.
2. Delete the older deploy key from the GitHub repository.

To create and delete deploy keys using the console, browse to the **Deploy Keys** tab under the repository settings.

To create and delete deploy keys using the API, follow the GitHub API documentation: <https://docs.github.com/en/rest/reference/repos#deploy-keys>.


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