Securely Accessing API Keys in Android Apps
This tutorial demonstrates how to securely retrieve API keys for your Android app at build time using GitHub secrets. It’s crucial to understand that directly pushing API keys to your code repository (like GitHub) is a critical security threat. Anyone with access to the repository could steal your keys and compromise your application.
It’s a bad security practice to push API keys to your code repository.
API keys act as digital credentials, granting access to valuable resources within an API. However, including your API key directly in your code repository (like GitHub) is a major security risk. If someone gains access to your repository, they can easily steal your key and use it to:
- Gain unauthorized access: They could use your key to impersonate your app and access sensitive data or perform unauthorized actions.
- Abuse your API: They could exploit your API for malicious purposes, such as generating excessive traffic or compromising user data.
To prevent such scenarios, it’s crucial to follow secure practices for handling your API keys. This tutorial will demonstrate how to retrieve your API key securely at build time using GitHub secrets, protecting your keys from unauthorized access.
