U.S. Treasury Breach and the Critical Importance of Securing Organizational Secrets

Jan

2025

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Written by:

Andrew Tweedie

Time to read

Written by:

Andrew Tweedie

In a world increasingly reliant on digital infrastructure, cyberattacks pose one of the greatest threats to organizations today. A recent high-profile breach, involving state-sponsored threat actors targeting the U.S. Treasury Department, underscores the critical importance of securing organizational secrets such as API keys. These keys are the cornerstone of securing digital infrastructure, ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity in communications and data transactions. Without proper safeguards, the consequences of a stolen key can be devastating.

What Are API Keys and Why Are They Important?

API keys are one of an organization’s most critical secrets, enabling authentication and maintaining communication integrity. However, their security depends entirely on the systems and practices designed to protect them. If an attacker gains access to an API key, they can bypass security measures, access applications, and even inject malicious code.

Lessons from the U.S. Treasury Cyberattack

The attack on the U.S. Treasury Department serves as a stark reminder of the stakes involved. Hackers obtained an API key, enabling them to override other security measures and gain unauthorized access. According to an official communication from the U.S. Treasury:

“With access to the stolen key, the threat actor was able to override the service’s security, remotely access certain Treasury DO user workstations, and access certain unclassified documents maintained by those users.”

While the details are still emerging, some reports suggest that hackers exploited a command injection vulnerability, a type of attack that compromises an application and its data by exploiting trust within a system. Fortunately, this attack was contained, but it highlights how adversaries often target cryptographic infrastructure to achieve their goals. Adversaries also commonly exploit weak key management practices. For example, storing keys in plaintext files, insufficient key rotation, or failing to revoke compromised keys can all lead to breaches.

Best Practices for Securing Organizational Secrets

To prevent incidents like the U.S. Treasury breach, organizations should adopt these keys and secrets management best practices:

Implement Strong Key and Secrets Management Policies: Whether keys and secrets are in the preoperational or operational state, they need to be stored securely and, ideally, away from the data they protect.
Use Hardware Security Modules (HSMs): Protect encryption keys and secrets with robust, hardware-based security.
Rotate Keys and Secrets Regularly: Reduce risk by using keys for shorter periods. For instance, if the same key is used over an extended period, the risk of that key being compromised increases. Likewise, the longer a key is used, the amount of data it is protecting increases and therefore, so does its value to an attacker.
Revoke Compromised Keys: Any compromised key – or even one suspected of compromise – must be revoked and replaced. The potential damage resulting from a compromise can be widespread, and restoring security can be both complex and expensive.
Adopt Zero Trust Principles: Organizations that adopt Zero Trust principles assume every connection, device, and user is a potential cybersecurity threat. This approach minimizes the attack surface by granting access only as needed.
Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Adoption of MFA best practices further strengthens the security of an organization’s keys and secrets with an additional layer of verification.

The Bigger Picture

As enterprises use cryptography at scale to protect applications, workloads, and data, traditional key management solutions often struggle with tracking and controlling the use of keys and secrets throughout their lifecycle. These solutions also often lack advanced features that enable enterprises to deliver on their compliance mandates and security policy requirements.

Entrust KeyControl addresses these limitations by combining key and secret lifecycle management with a decentralized vault-based architecture. KeyControl also delivers comprehensive central policy and compliance management capabilities for a wide range of use cases available on premises, as a service, or via hybrid deployments.

For organizations requiring higher levels of assurance, KeyControl integrates seamlessly with a FIPS 140-3 and Common Criteria EAL4+ certified Entrust nShield Hardware Security Module. The HSM provides an additional layer of security protecting the keys and secrets managed by KeyControl.

Take Control of Your Keys and Secrets

Securing cryptographic keys and secrets is not just a technical challenge – it’s a strategic imperative. Investments in robust cybersecurity measures and adhering to best practices can prevent breaches like the U.S. Treasury Department incident and protect the integrity of digital infrastructure. By understanding the risks, organizations can safeguard their information, secure their systems, and strengthen trust.

Learn more about how KeyControl can help you maintain control of your critical keys and secrets and strengthen your security.

Hardware Security Modules (HSM)

Key Management and Encryption

Zero Trust