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Baremetrics API Key

Baremetrics API keys are used to authenticate requests to the Baremetrics service, which provides analytics and insights for subscription-based businesses. These keys allow applications to interact with Baremetrics' API to retrieve and manipulate data related to customer subscriptions, revenue, and other financial metrics. Exposure of a Baremetrics API key can lead to unauthorized access to sensitive business data, making it a significant security concern.

How Does It Look​

Baremetrics API keys can appear in various contexts, such as:

  • Environment variables:

    export BAREMETRICS_API_KEY="sk_live_1234567890abcdef"

  • Configuration files (JSON):

    {
      "baremetrics": {
        "apiKey": "sk_live_1234567890abcdef"
      }
    }

  • Code snippets:

    const apiKey = "sk_live_1234567890abcdef";

  • Connection strings:

    baremetrics://api_key:sk_live_1234567890abcdef@api.baremetrics.com

Severity​

  • 🟠 High

The severity is high because the API key provides access to sensitive financial data and customer information. Unauthorized access could lead to data breaches, financial manipulation, and exposure of business-critical insights. The blast radius includes any data accessible via the Baremetrics API, potentially affecting business operations and customer trust.

What Can an Attacker Do?​

With immediate access to a Baremetrics API key, an attacker can perform several actions:

  • Access sensitive financial data (if the key has read permissions), allowing them to view revenue, customer subscriptions, and other metrics.
  • Modify or delete data (if the key has write permissions), potentially altering financial records or customer information.
  • Extract customer information (if the key has access to customer data), leading to privacy violations and potential identity theft.
  • Monitor business performance (if the key provides access to analytics), gaining insights into business operations and strategies.

An attacker could also use the API key to escalate their access or move laterally within the organization's systems, especially if the key is used in conjunction with other compromised credentials.

Real-World Impact​

Exposure of a Baremetrics API key poses significant business risks:

The primary impact includes unauthorized access to sensitive financial and customer data.

Potential consequences include:

  • Data Exposure: Customer subscription details and financial metrics (if the credential has read access to sensitive data)
  • Financial Loss: Manipulation of financial records or unauthorized transactions (if billing/resource creation is permitted)
  • Operational Disruption: Inaccurate analytics and reporting (if the attacker has delete/modify permissions)
  • Reputational Damage: Loss of customer trust and brand credibility

In a worst-case scenario, the exposure could lead to cascading effects, such as regulatory scrutiny, legal liabilities, and long-term damage to the business's reputation.

Prerequisites for Exploitation​

To exploit a Baremetrics API key, an attacker needs:

  • Network access: Ability to send requests to the Baremetrics API endpoint.
  • Additional context: Knowledge of the specific API endpoints and data structures.
  • Rate limits: Awareness of any rate limits or restrictions imposed by Baremetrics.

How to Verify If It's Active​

To verify if a Baremetrics API key is active, use the following command:

curl -X GET "https://api.baremetrics.com/v1/metrics" -H "Authorization: Bearer [API_KEY]"

Valid credential response: A successful response will return a JSON object with metrics data.

Invalid/expired credential response: An error message indicating unauthorized access or invalid credentials.

Detection Patterns​

Common Variable Names:

  • BAREMETRICS_API_KEY
  • BM_API_KEY
  • BAREMETRICS_KEY
  • API_KEY
  • BM_KEY
  • BAREMETRICS_SECRET

File Locations:

  • .env
  • config.json
  • settings.yaml
  • credentials.js
  • appsettings.json

Regex Pattern:

(?i)baremetrics[_-]?api[_-]?key['"]?\s*[:=]\s*['"]?[a-z0-9]{32,40}['"]?

Remediation Steps​

  1. Revoke immediately - Go to Baremetrics Dashboard > API Settings and delete the compromised API key.
  2. Audit access logs - Review Baremetrics access logs for unauthorized data access or modifications during the exposure window.
  3. Assess blast radius - Identify all systems, applications, and environments that used the exposed API key.
  4. Rotate credential - Generate a new API key in Baremetrics with least-privilege permissions.
  5. Update dependent systems - Deploy the new API key to all applications and update CI/CD pipelines securely.
  6. Harden access controls - Enable IP allowlisting in Baremetrics and require secure connections.
  7. Implement secrets management - Migrate API keys to a secrets manager (HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager) to prevent hardcoding.
  8. Add detection controls - Set up pre-commit hooks and repository scanning to catch API key leaks before they reach production.

Credential exposures often go undetected for extended periods, increasing the window for exploitation. As a long-term strategy, plan to establish an internal process or engage an external vendor for continuous external exposure monitoring. This helps identify leaked secrets across public repositories, paste sites, dark web forums, and other external sources before attackers can leverage them. Proactive detection and rapid response are essential to minimizing the impact of credential leaks.

References​