The Firebase Web-App guide states I should put the given apiKey in my Html to initialize Firebase:
// TODO: Replace with your project's customized code snippet
<script src="https://www.gstatic.com/firebasejs/3.0.2/firebase.js"></script>
<script>
// Initialize Firebase
var config = {
apiKey: '<your-api-key>',
authDomain: '<your-auth-domain>',
databaseURL: '<your-database-url>',
storageBucket: '<your-storage-bucket>'
};
firebase.initializeApp(config);
</script>
By doing so, the apiKey is exposed to every visitor.
What is the purpose of that key and is it really meant to be public?
The apiKey in this configuration snippet just identifies your Firebase project on the Google servers. It is not a security risk for someone to know it. In fact, it is necessary for them to know it, in order for them to interact with your Firebase project. This same configuration data is also included in every iOS and Android app that uses Firebase as its backend.
In that sense it is very similar to the database URL that identifies the back-end database associated with your project in the same snippet: https://<app-id>.firebaseio.com. See this question on why this is not a security risk: How to restrict Firebase data modification?, including the use of Firebase's server side security rules to ensure only authorized users can access the backend services.
If you want to learn how to secure all data access to your Firebase backend services is authorized, read up on the documentation on Firebase security rules. These rules control access to file storage and database access, and are enforced on the Firebase servers. So no matter if it's your code, or somebody else's code that uses you configuration data, it can only do what the security rules allow it to do.
For another explanation of what Firebase uses these values for, and for which of them you can set quotas, see the Firebase documentation on using and managing API keys.
If you'd like to reduce the risk of committing this configuration data to version control, consider using the SDK auto-configuration of Firebase Hosting. While the keys will still end up in the browser in the same format, they won't be hard-coded into your code anymore with that.
Update (May 2021): Thanks to the new feature called Firebase App Check, it is now actually possible to limit access to the backend services in your Firebase project to only those coming from iOS, Android and Web apps that are registered in that specific project.
You'll typically want to combine this with the user authentication based security described above, so that you have another shield against abusive users that do use your app.
By combining App Check with security rules you have both broad protection against abuse, and fine gained control over what data each user can access, while still allowing direct access to the database from your client-side application code.
Building on the answers of prufrofro and Frank van Puffelen here, I put together this setup that doesn't prevent scraping, but can make it slightly harder to use your API key.
Warning: To get your data, even with this method, one can for example simply open the JS console in Chrome and type:
firebase.database().ref("/get/all/the/data").once("value", function (data) {
console.log(data.val());
});
Only the database security rules can protect your data.
Nevertheless, I restricted my production API key use to my domain name like this:
https://console.developers.google.com/apis
Select your Firebase project
Credentials
Under API keys, pick your Browser key. It should look like this: "Browser key (auto created by Google Service)"
In "Accept requests from these
HTTP referrers (web sites)", add the URL of your app (exemple: projectname.firebaseapp.com/* )
Now the app will only work on this specific domain name. So I created another API Key that will be private for localhost developement.
Click Create credentials > API Key
By default, as mentioned by Emmanuel Campos, Firebase only whitelists localhost and your Firebase hosting domain.
In order to make sure I don't publish the wrong API key by mistake, I use one of the following methods to automatically use the more restricted one in production.
Setup for Create-React-App
In /env.development:
REACT_APP_API_KEY=###dev-key###
In /env.production:
REACT_APP_API_KEY=###public-key###
In /src/index.js
const firebaseConfig = {
apiKey: process.env.REACT_APP_API_KEY,
// ...
};
I am not convinced to expose security/config keys to client. I would not call it secure, not because some one can steal all private information from first day, because someone can make excessive request, and drain your quota and make you owe to Google a lot of money.
You need to think about many concepts from restricting people not to access where they are not supposed to be, DOS attacks etc.
I would more prefer the client first will hit to your web server, there you put what ever first hand firewall, captcha , cloudflare, custom security in between the client and server, or between server and firebase and you are good to go. At least you can first stop suspect activity before it reaches to firebase. You will have much more flexibility.
I only see one good usage scenario for using client based config for internal usages. For example, you have internal domain, and you are pretty sure outsiders cannot access there, so you can setup environment like browser -> firebase type.
The API key exposure creates a vulnerability when user/password sign up is enabled. There is an open API endpoint that takes the API key and allows anyone to create a new user account. They then can use this new account to log in to your Firebase Auth protected app or use the SDK to auth with user/pass and run queries.
I've reported this to Google but they say it's working as intended.
If you can't disable user/password accounts you should do the following:
Create a cloud function to auto disable new users onCreate and create a new DB entry to manage their access.
Ex: MyUsers/{userId}/Access: 0
exports.addUser = functions.auth.user().onCreate(onAddUser);
exports.deleteUser = functions.auth.user().onDelete(onDeleteUser);
Update your rules to only allow reads for users with access > 1.
On the off chance the listener function doesn't disable the account fast enough then the read rules will prevent them from reading any data.
I believe once database rules are written accurately, it will be enough to protect your data. Moreover, there are guidelines that one can follow to structure your database accordingly. For example, making a UID node under users, and putting all under information under it. After that, you will need to implement a simple database rule as below
"rules": {
"users": {
"$uid": {
".read": "auth != null && auth.uid == $uid",
".write": "auth != null && auth.uid == $uid"
}
}
}
}
No other user will be able to read other users' data, moreover, domain policy will restrict requests coming from other domains.
One can read more about it on
Firebase Security rules
While the original question was answered (that the api key can be exposed - the protection of the data must be set from the DB rulles), I was also looking for a solution to restrict the access to specific parts of the DB.
So after reading this and some personal research about the possibilities, I came up with a slightly different approach to restrict data usage for unauthorised users:
I save my users in my DB too, under the same uid (and save the profile data in there). So i just set the db rules like this:
".read": "auth != null && root.child('/userdata/'+auth.uid+'/userRole').exists()",
".write": "auth != null && root.child('/userdata/'+auth.uid+'/userRole').exists()"
This way only a previous saved user can add new users in the DB so there is no way anyone without an account can do operations on DB.
Also adding new users is posible only if the user has a special role and edit only by admin or by that user itself (something like this):
"userdata": {
"$userId": {
".write": "$userId === auth.uid || root.child('/userdata/'+auth.uid+'/userRole').val() === 'superadmin'",
...
EXPOSURE OF API KEYS ISN'T A SECURITY RISK BUT ANYONE CAN PUT YOUR CREDENTIALS ON THEIR SITE.
Open api keys leads to attacks that can use a lot resources at firebase that will definitely cost your hard money.
You can always restrict you firebase project keys to domains / IP's.
https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/credentials/key
select your project Id and key and restrict it to Your Android/iOs/web App.
It is oky to include them, and special care is required only for Firebase ML or when using Firebase Authentication
API keys for Firebase are different from typical API keys:
Unlike how API keys are typically used, API keys for Firebase services are not used to control access to backend resources; that can only be done with Firebase Security Rules. Usually, you need to fastidiously guard API keys (for example, by using a vault service or setting the keys as environment variables); however, API keys for Firebase services are ok to include in code or checked-in config files.
Although API keys for Firebase services are safe to include in code, there are a few specific cases when you should enforce limits for your API key; for example, if you're using Firebase ML or using Firebase Authentication with the email/password sign-in method. Learn more about these cases later on this page.
For more informations, check the offical docs
I am making a blog website on github pages. I got an idea to embbed comments in the end of every blog page. I understand how firebase get and gives you data.
I have tested many times with project and even using console. I am totally disagree the saying vlit is vulnerable.
Believe me there is no issue of showing your api key publically if you have followed privacy steps recommend by firebase.
Go to https://console.developers.google.com/apis
and perfrom a security steup.
You should not expose this info. in public, specially api keys.
It may lead to a privacy leak.
Before making the website public you should hide it. You can do it in 2 or more ways
Complex coding/hiding
Simply put firebase SDK codes at bottom of your website or app thus firebase automatically does all works. you don't need to put API keys anywhere
We are using Go server side code to interact with Google Ads REST API.
Namely, we authenticate it with help of "golang.org/x/oauth2" and
"golang.org/x/oauth2"packages.
In May (and recently again) we've got a email from Google regarding deprecation
Out-of-band flow, essentially rewording of this
one.
But additionally to common information, Google email listed account, which we
are using to authenticate, as being used in OOB flow and going to be blocked.
We checked our sources and available sources of mentioned packages but was not
able to find redirect URIs which are said to be used for OOB flow as one of
those:
redirect_uri=urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob
urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob:auto
oob
We explicitly use http://localhost in our code and long-live refresh token
(which seems never expires).
We also tried to use tcpdump to monitor our API calls, but was not able to
learn much from it, because calls are made via https and, therefore, encrypted.
We considered to use man-in-the-middle kind of proxy like
https://www.charlesproxy.com/, but haven't tried it yet, because it become
non-free and because of complexity of setup.
We tried to log our requests to API endpoint with custom RoundTripper, but
have not spotted anything suspicious. It seems that we're using refresh token
only and exchange of code to refresh token just never happen in the code.
Because of this, we don't think that further logging or monitoring with
decrypting https packages may help (but we open to suggestions how to do it better).
Finally, we decided to create a new OAuth 2 Client in the Google console with
fresh set of client id, client secret and refresh token. We obtained a new
refresh token with oauth2l and replaced
credentials in our configuration. But still, we are not sure that new account
will not be blocked by Google due OOB deprication, because seemingly it looks
the same as old one.
Questions:
Why may Google mark our account as OOB?
How can we ensure that newly created account will not be blocked?
Same here.
I find out an answer, that says "Desktop" type of Credentials uses OOB by default. Probably you need to create new Credentials with type "Web"
I generate a auth link like:
https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/v2/auth/oauthchooseaccount?access_type=offline&scope=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Fcalendar%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Fuserinfo.email%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Fcalendar.events&prompt=consent&response_type=code&client_id=xxx&redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2Flocalhost%3A4200%2Fapplication%2Fsettings%2Fgcal&flowName=GeneralOAuthFlow
As you can see I call for the authorization as defined in the documentation here https://developers.google.com/calendar/api/guides/auth however, when I go to auth this is what I am presented with: and I thought this might be some new security thing from google but then I look at connecting to other sites and the account works just fine there.
This application is also fully verified for the consent screen.
While doing some comparison between my calls and other site's I notice that mine have /v2/ in the path while others do not. I have tried multiple individual google accounts with same result, but I always get a v2 redirect.
Anyone here know why this happens with v3 accounts and how I can solve it?
Unfortunately, this is the new default behaviour
It is realted to the new policy of More granular Google Account permissions with Google OAuth and APIs
It is being gradually introduced and is not related to either v2 or v3 accounts are being used but rather will eventually implemented for all accounts
Should the user not grant you all the scopes necessary for your Addon to run - you will need to handle it programmatically checking which scopes have been granted and requesting additional scopes if required
Best practive would be to make it very clear to your users PRIOR to the app installation that checking all checkboxes is crucial for the correct functionality of the app.
There is a very good stackoverflow post that explains the new change more in detail and includes many useful references.
We have a page on our site that uses Google's reCAPTCHA before allowing the user to download a file.
It works great and we totally stopped all the evil bots from spamming our servers.
Now we want to allow a specific entity (user, domain, whatever) to be able to automatically download files without solving the challenge. Or maybe solving it once per session (which will be longer than 2 minutes) and not once per file.
Is there some way we can issue them a multi-use token or have them get a token from Google that will allow them (temporary?) unfettered access to our file downloads? Can we whitelist their domain in the Google admin settings?
Or is this something I need to build myself?
EDIT: It turns I didn't get all the requirements for this assignment. Whitelisting will not satisfy the requirements since it is apparently multiple entities, and that will indubitably change in the future.
reCAPTCHA does not provide specific whitelisting for users or domains.
Instead, you should be looking at making this dynamic on your side. For example, disable reCAPTCHA for signed-in users or generate a token on your server with an expiry time, set that as a cookie on the client, and disable reCAPTCHA for valid tokens.
The main use case is using IPython as CLI to my own Google accounts. What I am really after is minmizing the fussing around between starting the IPython shell and actually issuing usefull calls against the API.
The docs for authenticating with Google APIs focus on setting up application which other user will use to access their data.
This leads to a lengthy Oauth dance involving a browser in order to allow other users to authenticate without compromising their credential.
However, I do not mind sharing my private credentials with myself. I am not planning on sharing the code. If I did share the code I would use something like dotenv to separate the credentials from the code.
Twitter provides developers a second set of credentials
that allows developers to access their own accounts for testing.
Thus it is possible to access ones own account programmatically
by just providing to sets of credentials: the developer credentials that allow the calls to the API and the other credentials that grant access to the developers own data. For example:
from twitter import *
t = Twitter(
auth=OAuth(token, token_key, con_secret, con_secret_key))
# Get your "home" timeline
t.statuses.home_timeline()
# Update your status
t.statuses.update(
status="Tweeting from Python")
Where con_secret* are the developer credentials and
and token* are the account access credentials.
How can I do something equally simple with Google APIs?
Where can I get credentials to access my own account?
How would I use them in Google API?
As an example what would be the simplest procedure for retrieving the contents from one of my own Youtube playlists?
I have com to think that a Python headless browser library could be give me what I need. I have asked a related question on SE Software Recommendations
https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/35744/python-headless-browser-library-for-oauth2-authentication-from-ipython-console
I would like to download a set of credentials
Google offers this ability through it's client_secrets.json file. There are different ways to download this, depending on the type of account you want to use (Web application, installed application, Service account). The different techniques can be found here .
Store the credentials locally and keep using them without requiring
new credentials every call
This also isn't a problem, the client secret is valid until you renew it - AFAIK there is no automatic expiry unless you specify otherwise.
Once you have downloaded your client_secrets.json, store the file in a non-public directory (normally inside your project directory/config).
Similar to the downloading of the file, there are different techniques (flow classes) to use the JSON file depending on what type of account you are using. As an example, the below would be used for installed and web applications;
from oauth2client.client import OAuth2WebServerFlow
...
flow = OAuth2WebServerFlow(client_id='your_client_id',
client_secret='your_client_secret',
scope='scope URL here',
redirect_uri='http://example.com/auth_return')
Other flow class examples can be found here
Hope this helps - If you need further information, the official documentation (which be warned, can be incredibly inaccurate and confusing) can be found here https://developers.google.com/api-client-library/python/guide/aaa_oauth