restrict access to A4J secret keys

Question

I found out that secret keys stored in A4J are usable by anyone who has access to A4J on my Jira instance (i.e., project admins). For example, if I create a secret key for my Jira personal access token, then every project admin can use my PAT to send a request to Jira with my account identity and access.

HOW is that a secret? :/

Is there a way to prevent this so that everyone can only access the secret keys that they have defined?

reza rouhafza · Answer

Thanks a lot @Bill Sheboy

I read the suggestions you mentioned, but I think they are not about this problem.

For now, I found a very bad workaround :)  Since my automation triggers were asset-related and not issue-related, I set the PAT secret scope (and my rules) to a certain project that only I have automation access to. As a result, other project admins don't see my secret, BUT Jira admin can. That's a little more secure, I think :)

reza rouhafza · Answer

Hi @Aaron Williams

No. It is mostly about sending an "HTTP request" action. I'm concerned that if I define my PAT as a secret in A4J, someone else (i.e., other project admins) may use it to send their request with my PAT. It may cause some serious security issues.

It should be a restriction feature to prevent users from using other PATs that are not defined by them.

Bill Sheboy · Answer

Hi @reza rouhafza

You are correct: they are not.

In both Cloud and Server / Data Center automation, there is no actual "secret storage" for use in rules yet.  Even though Cloud has a "hide" feature to conceal things like headers in the Send Web Request action, anyone who can export rules can see them in the JSON.

There are several open suggestions to improve this, such as these:

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/AUTO-1365
https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JIRAAUTOSERVER-107

Kind regards,
Bill