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Glossary
Secrets Management Definition
Secrets management refers to the tools and methods for managing digital authentication credentials (secrets), including passwords, keys, APIs, and tokens for use in applications, services, privileged accounts and other sensitive parts of the IT ecosystem.
While secrets management is applicable across an entire enterprise, the terms “secrets” and “secrets management” are referred to more commonly in IT with regard to DevOps environments, tools, and processes.
Why Secrets Management is Important
Passwords and keys are some of the most broadly used and important tools your organization has for authenticating applications and users and providing them with access to sensitive systems, services, and information. Because secrets have to be transmitted securely, secrets management must account for and mitigate the risks to these secrets, both in transit and at rest.
Secrets can include:
User or auto-generated passwords
API and other application keys/credentials (including within containers)
SSH Keys
Database and other system-to-system passwords.
Private certificates for secure communication, transmitting and receiving of data (TLS, SSL etc.)
Private encryption keys for systems like PGP
RSA and other one-time password devices
Challenges to Secrets Management
As the IT ecosystem increases in complexity and the number and diversity of secrets explodes, it becomes increasingly difficult to securely store, transmit, and audit secrets.
Common risks to secrets and some considerations include:
All privileged accounts, applications, tools, containers, or microservices deployed across the environment, and the associated passwords, keys, and other secrets. SSH keys alone may number in the millions at some organizations, which should provide an inkling of a scale of the secrets management challenge. This becomes a particular shortcoming of decentralized approaches where admins, developers, and other team members all manage their secrets separately, if they’re managed at all. Without oversight that stretches across all IT layers, there are sure to be security gaps, as well as auditing challenges.
Privileged passwords and other secrets are needed to facilitate authentication for app-to-app (A2A) and application-to-database (A2D) communications and access. Often, applications and IoT devices are shipped and deployed with hardcoded, default credentials , which are easy to crack by hackers using scanning tools and applying simple guessing or dictionary-style attacks. DevOps tools frequently have secrets hardcoded in scripts or files, which jeopardizes security for the entire automation process.
Cloud and virtualization administrator consoles (as with AWS, Office 365, etc.) provide broad superuser privileges that enable users to rapidly spin up and spin down virtual machines and applications at massive scale. Each of these VM instances comes with its own set of privileges and secrets that need to be managed
While secrets need to be managed across the entire IT ecosystem, DevOps environments are where the challenges of managing secrets seem to be particularly amplified at the moment. DevOps teams typically leverage dozens of orchestration, configuration management, and other tools and technologies (Chef, Puppet, Ansible, Salt, Docker containers, etc.) relying on automation and other scripts that require secrets to work. Again, these secrets should all be managed according to best security practices, including credential rotation, time/activity-limited access, auditing, and more.
How do you ensure that the authorization provided via remote access or to a third-party is appropriately used? How do you ensure that the third-party organization is adequately managing secrets?
Leaving password security in the hands of humans is a recipe for mismanagement. Poor secrets hygiene, such as lack of password rotation, default passwords, embedded secrets, password sharing, and using easy-to-remember passwords, mean secrets are not likely to remain secret, opening up the opportunity for breaches. Generally, more manual secrets management processes equate to a higher likelihood of security gaps and malpractices.
Best Practices & Solutions for Secrets Management
As noted above, manual secrets management suffers from many shortcomings. Siloes and manual processes are frequently in conflict with “good” security practices, so the more comprehensive and automated a solution the better.
While there are many tools that manage some secrets, most tools are designed specifically for one platform (i.e. Docker), or a small subset of platforms. Then, there are application password management tools that can broadly manage application passwords, eliminate hardcoded and default passwords, and manage secrets for scripts.
While application password management is an improvement over manual management processes and standalone tools with limited use cases, IT security will benefit from a more holistic approach to manage passwords, keys, and other secrets throughout the enterprise.
Some secrets management or enterprise privileged credential management/privileged password management solutions go beyond just managing privileged user accounts, to manage all kinds of secrets—applications, SSH keys, services scripts, etc. These solutions can reduce risks by identifying, securely storing, and centrally managing every credential that grants an elevated level of access to IT systems, scripts, files, code, applications, etc.
In some cases, these holistic secrets management solutions are also integrated within privileged access management (PAM) platforms, which can layer on privileged security controls. Leveraging a PAM platform, for instance, you could provide and manage unique authentication to all privileged users, applications, machines, scripts, and processes, across your entire environment.
While holistic and broad secrets management coverage is best, regardless of your solution(s) for managing secrets, here are 7 best practices you should focus on addressing:
Discover/identify all types of passwords: Keys and other secrets across your entire IT environment and bring them under centralized management. Continuously discover and onboard new secrets as they are created.
Eliminate hardcoded/embedded secrets : In DevOps tool configurations, build scripts, code files, test builds, production builds, applications, and more. Bring hardcoded credentials under management, such as by using API calls, and enforce password security best practices. Eliminating hardcoded and default passwords effectively removes dangerous backdoors to your environment.
Enforce password security best practices: Including password length, complexity, uniqueness expiration, rotation, and more across all types of passwords. Secrets, if possible, should never be shared. If a secret is shared, it should be immediately changed. Secrets to more sensitive tools and systems should have more rigorous security parameters, such as one-time passwords, and rotation after each use.
Apply privileged session monitoring to log, audit, and monitor: All privileged sessions (for accounts, users, scripts, automation tools, etc.) to improve oversight and accountability. This can also entail capturing keystrokes and screens (allowing for live view and playback). Some enterprise privilege session management solutions also enable IT teams to pinpoint suspicious session activity in-progress, and pause, lock, or terminate the session until the activity can be adequately evaluated.
Extend secrets management to third-parties: Ensure partners and vendors conform to best practices in using and managing secrets.
Threat analytics: Continuously analyze secrets usage to detect anomalies and potential threats. The more integrated and centralized your secrets management, the better you will be able to report on accounts, keys applications, containers, and systems exposed to risk.
DevSecOps: With the speed and scale of DevOps, it’s crucial to build security into both the culture and the DevOps lifecycle (from inception, design, build, test, release, support, maintenance). Embracing a DevSecOps culture means that everyone shares responsibility for DevOps security, helping ensure accountability and alignment across teams. In practice, this should entail ensuring secrets management best practices are in place and that code does not contain embedded passwords in it.
By layering on other security best practices, including the principle of least privilege (PoLP) and separation of privilege, you can help ensure that users and applications have access and privileges restricted precisely to what they need and is authorized. Restriction and separation of privileges help reduce privileged access sprawl and condense the attack surface, such as by limiting lateral movement in the event of a compromise.
The right secrets management policies, buttressed by effective processes and tools, can make it much easier to manage, transmit, and secure secrets and other privileged information. By applying the 7 best practices in secrets management, you can not only support DevOps security, but tighter security across the enterprise.
Other Glossary Entries
Active Directory Bridging
Active Directory Security
Application Password Management
Cloud Security/Cloud Computing Security
Cyber-Attack Chain
Cybersecurity
DevOps Security
Digital Identity
Endpoint Security
File Integrity Monitoring
Hardcoded/Embedded Passwords
Identity and Access Management (IAM)
Least Privilege
Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP)
Managed Services Provider (MSP)
MFA Fatigue Attack
Orphaned Account
OWASP Top 10 Security Risks
Password
Password Rotation
Privileged Access Management (PAM)
Privileged Accounts
Privileged Password Management
Ransomware
Secure Socket Shell (SSH) Key Management
Separation of Privilege
Superuser/Superuser Accounts
Systems Hardening
Vulnerability Assessment
Vulnerability Scanning
What is a Pass-the-Hash Attack (PtH)?
Windows Auditing
Zero Standing Privileges
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Copyright © 2003 — 2023 BeyondTrust Corporation. All rights reserved. Other trademarks identified on this page are owned by their respective owners. BeyondTrust Corporation is not a chartered bank or trust company, or depository institution. It is not authorized to accept deposits or trust accounts and is not licensed or regulated by any state or federal banking authority.
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BeyondTrust .st0{fill:#FF5500;} Skip to content. Skip to content Products Products All Products All Products Integrations Integrations Solutions Solutions By Use Case By Use Case By Industry By Industry Resources Resources Resource Center Resource Center Events Events Support Support Professional Services Professional Services Customers Customers Customer Support Customer Support Professional Services Professional Services User Groups User Groups Case Studies Case Studies Partners Partners Find a Partner Find a Partner Integration Partners Integration Partners Become a Partner Become a Partner About About Get Started View a Demo Choose a product Password Safe Privilege Management Privileged Remote Access Remote Support I agree to receive product related communications from BeyondTrust as detailed in the Privacy Policy , and I may manage my preferences or withdraw my consent at any time. Continue middle name favorite color 1-877-826-6427 Start a Free Trial Choose a product Privileged Remote Access Remote Support I agree to receive product related communications from BeyondTrust as detailed in the Privacy Policy , and I may manage my preferences or withdraw my consent at any time. Free Trial middle name favorite color 1-877-826-6427 Contact Sales I agree to receive product related communications from BeyondTrust as detailed in the Privacy Policy , and I may manage my preferences or withdraw my consent at any time. Continue middle name favorite color 1-877-826-6427 Get Support. What can we help you with? English. Deutsch. francais. espanol. í•śęµě–´. portugues. Menu. I agree to receive product related communications from BeyondTrust as detailed in the Privacy Policy , and I may manage my preferences or withdraw my consent at any time. I agree to receive product related communications from BeyondTrust as detailed in the Privacy Policy , and I may manage my preferences or withdraw my consent at any time. I agree to receive product related communications from BeyondTrust as detailed in the Privacy Policy , and I may manage my preferences or withdraw my consent at any time. Identity Security Insights. Get unparalleled visibility into identities, accounts, and privileged access — all in one interface. Learn More Learn More. What is BeyondTrust? Get a closer look inside the BeyondTrust identity & access security arsenal. Learn More Learn More. Gartner Peer Insights. Find out how customers & analysts alike review BeyondTrust. Learn More Learn More. Go Beyond Customer & Partner Conference. Our biggest customer conference of the year is happening in Miami and virtually on May 1-5, 2023. Learn More Learn More. Watch Our Video. Find out more about our integrations. Learn More Learn More. Leader in Intelligent Identity & Secure Access. Learn how BeyondTrust solutions protect companies from cyber threats. Learn More Learn More. BeyondTrust Knowledge Base. Search the knowledge base for answers to FAQs & more. Learn More Learn More. Contact Us. Chat with Sales. Get Support. Glossary. Secrets Management Definition. Secrets management refers to the tools and methods for managing digital authentication credentials (secrets), including passwords, keys, APIs, and tokens for use in applications, services, privileged accounts and other sensitive parts of the IT ecosystem. While secrets management is applicable across an entire enterprise, the terms “secrets” and “secrets management” are referred to more commonly in IT with regard to DevOps environments, tools, and processes. Why Secrets Management is Important. Passwords and keys are some of the most broadly used and important tools your organization has for authenticating applications and users and providing them with access to sensitive systems, services, and information. Because secrets have to be transmitted securely, secrets management must account for and mitigate the risks to these secrets, both in transit and at rest. Secrets can include: User or auto-generated passwords. API and other application keys/credentials (including within containers) SSH Keys. Database and other system-to-system passwords. Private certificates for secure communication, transmitting and receiving of data (TLS, SSL etc.) Private encryption keys for systems like PGP. RSA and other one-time password devices. Challenges to Secrets Management. As the IT ecosystem increases in complexity and the number and diversity of secrets explodes, it becomes increasingly difficult to securely store, transmit, and audit secrets. Common risks to secrets and some considerations include: All privileged accounts, applications, tools, containers, or microservices deployed across the environment, and the associated passwords, keys, and other secrets. SSH keys alone may number in the millions at some organizations, which should provide an inkling of a scale of the secrets management challenge. This becomes a particular shortcoming of decentralized approaches where admins, developers, and other team members all manage their secrets separately, if they’re managed at all. Without oversight that stretches across all IT layers, there are sure to be security gaps, as well as auditing challenges. Privileged passwords and other secrets are needed to facilitate authentication for app-to-app (A2A) and application-to-database (A2D) communications and access. Often, applications and IoT devices are shipped and deployed with hardcoded, default credentials , which are easy to crack by hackers using scanning tools and applying simple guessing or dictionary-style attacks. DevOps tools frequently have secrets hardcoded in scripts or files, which jeopardizes security for the entire automation process. Cloud and virtualization administrator consoles (as with AWS, Office 365, etc.) provide broad superuser privileges that enable users to rapidly spin up and spin down virtual machines and applications at massive scale. Each of these VM instances comes with its own set of privileges and secrets that need to be managed. While secrets need to be managed across the entire IT ecosystem, DevOps environments are where the challenges of managing secrets seem to be particularly amplified at the moment. DevOps teams typically leverage dozens of orchestration, configuration management, and other tools and technologies (Chef, Puppet, Ansible, Salt, Docker containers, etc.) relying on automation and other scripts that require secrets to work. Again, these secrets should all be managed according to best security practices, including credential rotation, time/activity-limited access, auditing, and more. How do you ensure that the authorization provided via remote access or to a third-party is appropriately used? How do you ensure that the third-party organization is adequately managing secrets? Leaving password security in the hands of humans is a recipe for mismanagement. Poor secrets hygiene, such as lack of password rotation, default passwords, embedded secrets, password sharing, and using easy-to-remember passwords, mean secrets are not likely to remain secret, opening up the opportunity for breaches. Generally, more manual secrets management processes equate to a higher likelihood of security gaps and malpractices. Best Practices & Solutions for Secrets Management. As noted above, manual secrets management suffers from many shortcomings. Siloes and manual processes are frequently in conflict with “good” security practices, so the more comprehensive and automated a solution the better. While there are many tools that manage some secrets, most tools are designed specifically for one platform (i.e. Docker), or a small subset of platforms. Then, there are application password management tools that can broadly manage application passwords, eliminate hardcoded and default passwords, and manage secrets for scripts. While application password management is an improvement over manual management processes and standalone tools with limited use cases, IT security will benefit from a more holistic approach to manage passwords, keys, and other secrets throughout the enterprise. Some secrets management or enterprise privileged credential management/privileged password management solutions go beyond just managing privileged user accounts, to manage all kinds of secrets—applications, SSH keys, services scripts, etc. These solutions can reduce risks by identifying, securely storing, and centrally managing every credential that grants an elevated level of access to IT systems, scripts, files, code, applications, etc. In some cases, these holistic secrets management solutions are also integrated within privileged access management (PAM) platforms, which can layer on privileged security controls. Leveraging a PAM platform, for instance, you could provide and manage unique authentication to all privileged users, applications, machines, scripts, and processes, across your entire environment. While holistic and broad secrets management coverage is best, regardless of your solution(s) for managing secrets, here are 7 best practices you should focus on addressing: Discover/identify all types of passwords: Keys and other secrets across your entire IT environment and bring them under centralized management. Continuously discover and onboard new secrets as they are created. Eliminate hardcoded/embedded secrets : In DevOps tool configurations, build scripts, code files, test builds, production builds, applications, and more. Bring hardcoded credentials under management, such as by using API calls, and enforce password security best practices. Eliminating hardcoded and default passwords effectively removes dangerous backdoors to your environment. Enforce password security best practices: Including password length, complexity, uniqueness expiration, rotation, and more across all types of passwords. Secrets, if possible, should never be shared. If a secret is shared, it should be immediately changed. Secrets to more sensitive tools and systems should have more rigorous security parameters, such as one-time passwords, and rotation after each use. Apply privileged session monitoring to log, audit, and monitor: All privileged sessions (for accounts, users, scripts, automation tools, etc.) to improve oversight and accountability. This can also entail capturing keystrokes and screens (allowing for live view and playback). Some enterprise privilege session management solutions also enable IT teams to pinpoint suspicious session activity in-progress, and pause, lock, or terminate the session until the activity can be adequately evaluated. Extend secrets management to third-parties: Ensure partners and vendors conform to best practices in using and managing secrets. Threat analytics: Continuously analyze secrets usage to detect anomalies and potential threats. The more integrated and centralized your secrets management, the better you will be able to report on accounts, keys applications, containers, and systems exposed to risk. DevSecOps: With the speed and scale of DevOps, it’s crucial to build security into both the culture and the DevOps lifecycle (from inception, design, build, test, release, support, maintenance). Embracing a DevSecOps culture means that everyone shares responsibility for DevOps security, helping ensure accountability and alignment across teams. In practice, this should entail ensuring secrets management best practices are in place and that code does not contain embedded passwords in it. By layering on other security best practices, including the principle of least privilege (PoLP) and separation of privilege, you can help ensure that users and applications have access and privileges restricted precisely to what they need and is authorized. Restriction and separation of privileges help reduce privileged access sprawl and condense the attack surface, such as by limiting lateral movement in the event of a compromise. The right secrets management policies, buttressed by effective processes and tools, can make it much easier to manage, transmit, and secure secrets and other privileged information. By applying the 7 best practices in secrets management, you can not only support DevOps security, but tighter security across the enterprise. Other Glossary Entries. Active Directory Bridging. Active Directory Security. Application Password Management. Cloud Security/Cloud Computing Security. Cyber-Attack Chain. Cybersecurity. DevOps Security. Digital Identity. Endpoint Security. File Integrity Monitoring. Hardcoded/Embedded Passwords. Identity and Access Management (IAM) Least Privilege. Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP) Managed Services Provider (MSP) MFA Fatigue Attack. Orphaned Account. OWASP Top 10 Security Risks. Password. Password Rotation. Privileged Access Management (PAM) Privileged Accounts. Privileged Password Management. Ransomware. Secure Socket Shell (SSH) Key Management. Separation of Privilege. Superuser/Superuser Accounts. Systems Hardening. Vulnerability Assessment. Vulnerability Scanning. What is a Pass-the-Hash Attack (PtH)? Windows Auditing. Zero Standing Privileges. Products. All Products. Integrations. Solutions. By Use Case. By Industry. Resources. Blog. Case Studies. Competitor Comparisons. Datasheets. Glossary. Infographics. Podcast. Videos. Webinars. Whitepapers. Customers. Implementation Packages. Technical Account Management. Health Checks. BeyondTrust University. Customer Stories. Customer Support. Customer Events. Partners. Find a Partner. Technology Alliances. Become a Partner. About. Job Listings 42. Employee Life. Leadership Team. Press & Media. Keep up with BeyondTrust. I agree to receive product related communications from BeyondTrust as detailed in the Privacy Policy , and I may manage my preferences or withdraw my consent at any time. LinkedIn. Twitter. Facebook. Instagram. Customer Support. Get Started. Privacy. Security. Manage Cookies. WEEE Compliance. Copyright © 2003 — 2023 BeyondTrust Corporation. All rights reserved. Other trademarks identified on this page are owned by their respective owners. BeyondTrust Corporation is not a chartered bank or trust company, or depository institution. It is not authorized to accept deposits or trust accounts and is not licensed or regulated by any state or federal banking authority.