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# API keys transmitted over cleartext misconfiguration detected in code

## Rule Details

|                        |                        |
| ---------------------- | ---------------------- |
| Cortex AppSec Rule ID  | APPSEC\_OPENAPI\_20    |
| Category - Subcategory | Public Exposure - APIs |
| Provider               | OTHER                  |
| Severity               | HIGH                   |
| Framework              | OpenAPI                |

## Impact

This rule is essentially checking for instances where API keys may be sent over unencrypted, plain text. The danger or risk associated with violation of this rule is that it could lead to potential security breaches. If API keys are sent over clear text, it could potentially be intercepted and inappropriately used by malicious third parties, leading to unauthorized access, data theft or other harmful malicious activities.

## How to Fix

To fix this issue in your OpenAPI (Swagger) file, define security scopes that allow you to set the level of access for each API operation. Specifically, include each security scope within the `securityDefinition` block.

## In the above code, `my_oauth` defines an OAuth security scheme where 'read:stuff' and 'write:stuff' are the specific scopes. The 'read:stuff' and 'write:stuff' scopes indicate the actions that can be performed when a user is granted these permissions. This structure ensures that API consumers understand what specific authorizations are required to access each operation. This is a strong practice in securing your API as it provides granularity in access control for each operation in your API specification. \[source,go]

## securityDefinitions: my\_oauth: type: oauth2 scopes: 'read:stuff': Read access to the stuff 'write:stuff': Write access to the stuff flow: implicit authorizationUrl: <https://oauth.example.com/authorize>


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