An Alibaba Cloud AccessKey pair is a secure identity credential that you can use to access your Alibaba Cloud resources by calling API operations. You can use the AccessKey pair to sign API requests to pass the security authentication. This topic describes how to create and obtain an AccessKey pair.
Background information
An AccessKey pair consists of an AccessKey ID and an AccessKey secret.
- The AccessKey ID is used to verify the identity of the user.
- The AccessKey secret is used to encrypt and verify the signature string. You must keep your AccessKey secret strictly confidential.
Warning
- If the AccessKey pair of your Alibaba Cloud account is leaked, your cloud resources are exposed to high risks. We recommend that you use a RAM user to call API operations. This minimizes the risk in which the AccessKey pair of your Alibaba Cloud account is leaked.
- If your AccessKey pair is leaked, we recommend that you immediately delete it and create another AccessKey pair.