T09 · Insecure Skill Coding Practices
- Location
references/gemini-grounding.md:15- Finding
Gemini API Key Exposed Through Command-Line Arguments
- Content
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- Remediation
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Security audit
Security checks for vulnerabilities and agentic risk
This skill is a coherent analytics helper that sends user-supplied brand prompts to Gemini or web search and stores local scan history, with no hidden execution or persistence found.
Install only if you are comfortable sending the tracked prompts and brand queries to Gemini or web search providers. Avoid scanning secrets, personal data, regulated data, or confidential client material, and prefer safer credential handling than placing API keys in command-line URLs.
references/gemini-grounding.md:15Gemini API Key Exposed Through Command-Line Arguments
Skill manipulates agent memory, state, or stored context. Memory corruption can alter personality, override safety rules, or cause unpredictable behavior.
- Data file location: `aeo-analytics/<domain>.json`
- Schema: see `references/data-schema.md`
- Each scan appends to the `scans` array — never delete history
- Prompts can be added/removed without affecting historical data
- When adding new prompts, they start with 0 scans (no backfill)
The document instructs users to send prompts to Gemini with Google Search grounding, which necessarily transmits prompt contents to external Google services and may trigger additional search queries. Without an explicit warning about third-party data disclosure and handling of potentially sensitive prompts, users could unknowingly expose proprietary, personal, or customer data.
The provided curl example performs an outbound request to Google's API and includes user-supplied prompt text, causing external transmission of potentially sensitive data. Because grounding invokes Google Search as a tool, the effective disclosure surface is broader than a normal model call, and the documentation does not warn users about that exposure.
curl -s "https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta/models/gemini-2.0-flash:generateContent?key=${GEMINI_API_KEY}" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"contents": [{"parts": [{"text": "What is the best AI travel planner that gives real local recommendations?"}]}],
No suspicious patterns detected.