Snowflake MFA Key - Pair authentication for Powerbi

Question

Snowflake MFA Key - Pair authentication for Powerbi

Hariharan R 15

Problem:

Snowflake enforces Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) on all users, in line with our security policies.
Power BI does not support key pair authentication, which Snowflake offers for M2M scenarios
Power BI's supported auth methods to Snowflake are:
Username/password (blocked by MFA)
OAuth (but unclear if non-interactive / service principal-based flow is fully supported)

Since this is a fully automated machine-to-machine (M2M) setup with no user interaction, Power BI’s current authentication mechanisms are not suitable when MFA is enforced in Snowflake.Problem:

Snowflake enforces Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) on all users, in line with our security policies.
Power BI does not support key pair authentication, which Snowflake offers for M2M scenarios/
Power BI's supported auth methods to Snowflake are:
Username/password (blocked by MFA)
OAuth (but unclear if non-interactive / service principal-based flow is fully supported)
how to Achieve Key-pair Authenticaion at powerbi?

Since this is a fully automated machine-to-machine (M2M) setup with no user interaction, Power BI’s current authentication mechanisms are not suitable when MFA is enforced in Snowflake.

2 answers

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Answer 1

Harry Vo (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 3,585 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi Hariharan R,

OAuth (but unclear if non-interactive / service principal-based flow is fully supported)

Power BI supports OAuth 2.0 authentication to Snowflake using Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) service principals, which enables true M2M connectivity without requiring MFA or user interaction.

how to Achieve Key-pair Authenticaion at powerbi?

Here’s a quick outline of how you can achieve this setup:

Register a service principal in Microsoft Entra ID.
In Snowflake, create a security integration object that maps Entra ID token claims to Snowflake roles.
Use Power BI’s OAuth option in the Snowflake connector to configure the service principal credentials.
This setup allows Power BI to connect to Snowflake seamlessly, fully automated and MFA-compliant.

Feel free to ask if you have any question! Thank you!

Hariharan R 15 Reputation points

2025-07-15T08:53:13.7066667+00:00

HI Harry, we Tried the Security Integration Method, by running a query in our snowflake, after the execution, our snowflake account got blocked entirely, so we had to revoke the executed query, is there a safe way to follow this, because our snowflake is tied to many sub accounts
Harry Vo (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 3,585 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-07-15T10:05:54.6933333+00:00

Hi Hariharan R,

Thanks for following up. You can follow this document to learn more about this method: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/service-connect-snowflake

Moreover, I’m sorry to say this but my main area of focus is UWP (Universal Windows Platform) development, so I’m not the best person to troubleshoot Snowflake configurations at this level.

For more targeted support, I recommend posting your question in a dedicated forum like the Power BI Forums, where you’re more likely to receive specialized assistance. Thank you!

Answer 2

Hong Zhang (Fletcher Building) 0

Power BI now supports Snowflake Key Pair Authentication.

BrLat 5 Reputation points

2025-11-21T09:29:47.6633333+00:00

How so? I'm unable to find any information about that
Hong Zhang (Fletcher Building) 0 Reputation points

2025-11-21T10:35:24.4166667+00:00

I can see the key pair auth option in both latest Power BI desktop and the Power BI service. Are you able to see the option?
BrLat 5 Reputation points

2025-11-21T11:01:47.76+00:00

Yes I just tried it and now I get a weird error : "Can't convert 12 to proper M credential Type"

My report uses both an on-premise gateway and a cloud Snowflake connection which worked flawlessly before as I allowed the cloud data sources to refresh through the gateway cluster. However, I had used the OAuth method for that.

What's bugging me is that I did the same thing for another report (The same on-premise gateway and Snowflake cloud connection as the first report), and authenticated using a key pair and it worked without any problems

Have you encountered something similar before?
Camp, Rob 0 Reputation points

2025-12-09T19:38:55.9233333+00:00

I just encountered the exact same error when trying to connect to Snowflake from Power BI using an RSA key pair. Any idea what causes this type of error?
Harry Vo (WICLOUD CORPORATION) 3,585 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-12-10T02:43:54.02+00:00

Hi @Camp, Rob , to have a better support, please raise a new question at PowerBI forum: https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Power-BI-forums/ct-p/powerbi

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Snowflake MFA Key - Pair authentication for Powerbi

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