Postman, a widely used API development and testing platform, recently found itself at the center of a significant security incident. Researchers from organizations such as Assetnote and CybelAngel discovered that sensitive information, including API keys, tokens, and other credentials, was being inadvertently exposed in public or poorly secured Postman workspaces. These leaks were caused by improper handling of sensitive data by developers who shared their environments without understanding the security implications. Publicly accessible workspaces containing these credentials allowed unauthorized access to critical cloud resources, payment gateways, and third-party services, posing a major risk to the organizations involved.
The primary issue behind these leaks was misconfigured sharing settings in Postman, which allowed users to inadvertently expose sensitive data. Workspaces, intended for collaboration, were often shared publicly without proper access controls, making them discoverable by anyone with the link. This oversight enabled search engines and unauthorized users to index and access sensitive information such as API keys and tokens embedded in environment files. Furthermore, many developers failed to adopt best practices for secrets management, leaving their credentials stored in unprotected environment variables within Postman itself.
The real-world impact of these leaks was significant. In one case, researchers found exposed API keys that provided full administrative access to cloud services, allowing attackers to deploy malicious code, exfiltrate sensitive data, and disrupt services. Additionally, the leaks involved payment gateways and third-party API credentials, creating the risk of unauthorized financial transactions and fraud. The incident highlighted the broader issues in the software development lifecycle, particularly the over-reliance on manual processes for managing API security credentials and the absence of automated secrets scanning tools to detect these exposures.
In response to these vulnerabilities, Postman has introduced a new policy aimed at preventing the exposure of sensitive information in public workspaces. The platform now alerts users when secrets are detected in shared environments and offers resolution steps to transition to private or team workspaces. To prevent similar incidents, developers are encouraged to implement strict access controls, regularly rotate API keys, use secrets management tools, and conduct security training. By adopting these practices, organizations can better protect sensitive data and reduce the risk of future breaches in API development environments.
