Apollo Security Basics

Overview

Security best practices for Apollo.io API integrations. Apollo API keys grant broad access to 275M+ contacts — a leaked key is a serious incident. This covers key management, PII redaction, data access controls, key rotation, and audit procedures.

Prerequisites

• Valid Apollo.io API credentials
• Node.js 18+

Instructions

Step 1: Secure API Key Storage

Apollo supports two key types with different risk profiles:

• Standard key: search + enrichment only (lower risk)
• Master key: full CRM access including delete (highest risk)

// NEVER: const API_KEY = 'abc123';  // hardcoded
// NEVER: params: { api_key: key }   // query string (logged in server access logs)

// ALWAYS: x-api-key header + env var or secret manager
import { SecretManagerServiceClient } from '@google-cloud/secret-manager';

async function getApiKey(): Promise<string> {
  // Dev/staging: environment variable
  if (process.env.APOLLO_API_KEY) return process.env.APOLLO_API_KEY;

  // Production: GCP Secret Manager
  const client = new SecretManagerServiceClient();
  const [version] = await client.accessSecretVersion({
    name: 'projects/my-project/secrets/apollo-api-key/versions/latest',
  });
  return version.payload?.data?.toString() ?? '';
}

# .gitignore — prevent accidental commits
.env
.env.local
.env.*.local
*.pem
secrets/

Step 2: PII Redaction for Logging

Apollo responses contain emails, phone numbers, and LinkedIn profiles. Never log raw responses in production.

// src/apollo/redact.ts
const PII_PATTERNS: [RegExp, string][] = [
  [/\b[A-Za-z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Za-z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,}\b/gi, '[EMAIL]'],
  [/\b\+?\d{1,3}[-.\s]?\(?\d{1,4}\)?[-.\s]?\d{1,4}[-.\s]?\d{1,9}\b/g, '[PHONE]'],
  [/x-api-key[:\s]+["']?[\w-]+["']?/gi, 'x-api-key: [REDACTED]'],
  [/linkedin\.com\/in\/[^\s"',]+/gi, 'linkedin.com/in/[REDACTED]'],
];

export function redactPII(text: string): string {
  let result = text;
  for (const [pattern, replacement] of PII_PATTERNS) {
    result = result.replace(pattern, replacement);
  }
  return result;
}

// Attach as axios interceptor
client.interceptors.response.use((response) => {
  if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production') {
    // Never log raw Apollo response data in production
    console.log(`[Apollo] ${response.status} ${response.config.url}`);
  } else {
    console.log('[Apollo]', redactPII(JSON.stringify(response.data).slice(0, 500)));
  }
  return response;
});