The silent cyberthreat lurking in mismanaged tokens

In today’s digital economy, the humble token has become one of the most valuable and vulnerable assets in business technology.

These invisible strings of code, whether in the form of API keys, OAuth credentials or ephemeral access tokens, operate as the crown jewels of authentication. They quietly enable integrations, automate workflows, and authorise both people and machines to access sensitive data and systems.

When properly managed, tokens streamline operations and reduce friction across cloud services, applications and connected platforms. However, when mishandled they are a silent threat.

Unlike passwords, tokens are often exempt from multi-factor authentication and can slip under the radar of traditional security tools. Their compromise may not raise immediate alarms, but the consequences can be devastating.

The breach no one sees coming

The dangers are not theoretical and there have been several high-profile breaches in recent years that have involved stolen tokens. Once in the hands of a cybercriminal, a token can open the door to critical systems, often without triggering alerts.

The risks are far-reaching. Businesses face potential regulatory fines, reputational damage and the prospect of long-term exposure of confidential systems. For publicly listed companies, the fallout can extend to investor confidence, share price volatility, and ongoing scrutiny from regulators and customers alike.

When convenience outweighs security

Part of the problem lies in how organisations treat tokens. Too often, they are created and stored as an afterthought, with speed and convenience outweighing security discipline. Developers, under pressure to deliver quickly, may embed shortcuts into workflows, leaving tokens exposed.

In practice, this manifests in several ways. Some tokens are set to never expire, effectively giving an attacker unlimited access if stolen. Others are granted sweeping administrative privileges, violating the principle of least privilege and handing criminals a master key to entire systems.

Hardcoding tokens into source code remains one of the most notorious mistakes. Once such code makes its way into a public repository, whether through oversight or accident, it becomes an open invitation for malicious actors armed with automated scanning tools.

Even when not exposed publicly, insecure storage practices such as keeping tokens in plain text configuration files or browser storage create weak points. Once accessed, these tokens can be exploited with minimal technical effort.

Compounding the issue is a lack of visibility. Many organisations cannot centrally track or revoke tokens in real time, leaving them powerless to cut off access if compromise is suspected. Traditional identity-based monitoring tools are also blind to token misuse, meaning an attacker could operate unnoticed for months.

Building tokens that defend themselves

If tokens are to remain a cornerstone of digital identity, they must be designed and managed with the same rigour as passwords or privileged accounts, and this begins with stronger technical design.

Tokens should be generated with robust cryptographic randomness to resist prediction, even against advances in artificial intelligence. Lifespans should be short — ideally hours or minutes rather than weeks — to limit the window of opportunity for misuse. Access must be tightly scoped, granting only what is strictly necessary for the task at hand.

Additional safeguards include contextual access controls, which restrict use of a token to particular devices, sessions or IP addresses. And importantly, tokens must be revocable at short notice, with centralised management that allows organisations to immediately invalidate compromised credentials.

From policy to enforcement

Best-practice design alone is not enough. To truly mitigate the risk, organisations must embed secure token management into broader corporate policy. This includes automated token rotation policies that trigger during personnel changes, signs of compromise or at regular intervals.

Integrating secrets management platforms into developer workflows can eliminate the temptation to hardcode tokens into software. This is particularly critical in modern environments such as continuous integration pipelines and AI-driven systems, where tokens are frequently used to authenticate machine identities.

Finally, continuous monitoring tools are essential. Identity threat detection and response (ITDR) platforms, which use behavioural analytics to spot anomalies in token use, can alert security teams to suspicious activity long before traditional tools would raise a flag.

More than just a technical issue

For business leaders, token security should not be dismissed as a niche IT problem as it sits squarely within the realm of risk management and governance. In the same way that boards scrutinise financial exposure, cyber liability or regulatory compliance, they must also ask whether their organisation has visibility into token use and the ability to revoke them instantly.

The parallels with password management are clear as it took years of painful breaches for organisations to recognise the importance of secure password practices. Tokens now require that same cultural shift, as they are, in effect, another class of secret and must be managed as such.

*Morey Haber is the Chief Security Advisor at BeyondTrust and has more than 25 years’ IT industry experience. During this time, he has authored four books: Privileged Attack Vectors, Asset Attack Vectors, Identity Attack Vectors, and Cloud Attack Vectors. He is a founding member of the industry group Transparency in Cyber, and in 2020 was elected to the Identity Defined Security Alliance (IDSA) Executive Advisory Board. He currently oversees BeyondTrust security and governance for corporate and cloud-based solutions.

Top image credit: iStock.com/ArtemisDiana