How to meet it
OWASP AISVS v1.01
Access Control & Identity for AI Components & Users · Authentication
Short-lived tokens for federated agents
Verify that AI agents in federated or multi-system deployments authenticate using short-lived, minimal-scoped, cryptographically signed tokens.
OWASP AISVS v1.01, requirement 5.1.2
In plain English
When agents call other systems, give them short-lived tokens that are signed and allow only what that call needs, so a stolen token is of little use.
What good looks like
- Agent tokens expire in minutes or hours.
- Each token is scoped to the specific service and actions.
- Tokens are signed and checked by the receiving service.
How teams usually do it
- OAuth client credentials or token exchange to issue narrow, short-lived tokens.
- Workload identity federation in your cloud platform, so no long-lived secrets are stored.
Evidence an auditor would accept
- Token lifetimes and scopes from the issuing service.
- Configuration of receiving services showing they validate tokens.
Common mistakes
- One long-lived API key shared by every agent.
- Scopes that allow everything because narrowing them was hard.
Not sure which requirements apply to your system? Take the assessment.
Requirement text from the OWASP AI Security Verification Standard, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. This guidance is shared under the same licence.