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Confluent Credentials

Confluent credentials are used to authenticate and authorize access to Confluent Cloud, a managed Apache Kafka service. These credentials are critical for managing Kafka clusters, topics, and other resources within the Confluent ecosystem. Exposure of these credentials can lead to unauthorized access, data breaches, and potential misuse of resources, making it a significant security concern.

How Does It Look​

Confluent credentials can appear in various contexts, such as:

  • Environment variables:

    export CONFLUENT_API_KEY="****"
    export CONFLUENT_API_SECRET="****"

  • Configuration files (JSON, YAML, .env):

    {
      "api_key": "****",
      "api_secret": "****"
    }

  • Code snippets:

    from confluent_kafka import Producer

    conf = {'bootstrap.servers': '****',
            'sasl.username': '****',
            'sasl.password': '****'}
    producer = Producer(**conf)

  • Connection strings:

    SASL_SSL://username:****@broker.confluent.cloud:9092

Severity​

  • 🔴 Critical

Confluent credentials are considered critical because they provide access to Kafka clusters and associated resources. Unauthorized access can lead to data manipulation, service disruption, and financial implications due to resource misuse. The blast radius includes all data and services managed within the Confluent environment.

What Can an Attacker Do?​

With immediate access to Confluent credentials, an attacker can perform several malicious actions:

An attacker can immediately access Kafka clusters, allowing them to:

  • Delete or modify data (if the credential has write permissions)
  • Access sensitive data streams (if the credential has read permissions)
  • Spin up additional resources (if compute permissions are granted)
  • Disrupt service operations (by altering configurations or deleting topics)

Additionally, attackers can escalate their access or move laterally within the network by exploiting other connected systems or services, potentially leading to broader organizational impact.

Real-World Impact​

The exposure of Confluent credentials poses significant business risks, including:

The primary impact includes unauthorized access to data and services.

Potential consequences include:

  • Data Exposure: Access to sensitive data streams (if the credential has read access to sensitive data)
  • Financial Loss: Increased costs from unauthorized resource usage (if billing/resource creation is permitted)
  • Operational Disruption: Service outages or data loss (if the attacker has delete/modify permissions)
  • Reputational Damage: Loss of customer trust and brand integrity

In worst-case scenarios, attackers could leverage exposed credentials to cause cascading failures across interconnected systems, amplifying the damage.

Prerequisites for Exploitation​

To exploit Confluent credentials, an attacker needs:

  • Network access to the Confluent Cloud environment
  • Knowledge of account IDs and endpoints to target specific resources
  • Bypassing any rate limits or IP restrictions that may be in place

How to Verify If It's Active​

To verify if a Confluent credential is active, use the following command:

curl -u [API_KEY]:[API_SECRET] https://[HOST]/v2/clusters

Valid credential response: A successful response will return a list of clusters and their details.

Invalid/expired credential response: An error message indicating authentication failure or invalid credentials.

Detection Patterns​

Common Variable Names:

  • CONFLUENT_API_KEY
  • CONFLUENT_API_SECRET
  • KAFKA_USERNAME
  • KAFKA_PASSWORD
  • SASL_USERNAME
  • SASL_PASSWORD

File Locations:

  • .env
  • config.json
  • application.yml
  • kafka.properties
  • settings.py

Regex Pattern:

(?i)(confluent|kafka)_?(api|sasl)?_?(key|secret|username|password)\s*[:=]\s*["']?[a-zA-Z0-9-_]{20,40}["']?

Remediation Steps​

  1. Revoke immediately - Go to Confluent Cloud > Security > API Keys and delete the compromised key.
  2. Audit access logs - Review Confluent audit logs for unauthorized access or data manipulation during the exposure window.
  3. Assess blast radius - Identify all systems, applications, and environments that used the exposed credential.
  4. Rotate credential - Generate a new API key in Confluent Cloud with least-privilege permissions.
  5. Update dependent systems - Deploy the new credential to all applications and update CI/CD pipelines securely.
  6. Harden access controls - Enable IP allowlisting in Confluent Cloud and require TLS connections.
  7. Implement secrets management - Migrate credentials 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 credential 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​