Secrets Management Best Practices

Introduction

Secrets management is a core security requirement in cloud platforms. Hard-coded credentials, long-lived tokens, and unmanaged secrets are common sources of breaches. A modern strategy combines centralized secret storage, automated rotation, and strict access policies.

Core Principles

• Centralize secrets in a managed secrets store.
• Use short-lived credentials and automatic rotation.
• Enforce least-privilege access and audit logs.
• Separate secrets per environment and service.

Common Secret Types

• Database credentials.
• API tokens for third-party services.
• TLS certificates and private keys.
• Encryption keys and signing secrets.

Access Patterns

• Inject secrets at runtime instead of build time.
• Use workload identity to avoid static keys.
• Cache secrets with strict TTLs and revalidation.

Example: Retrieving a Secret with Azure Key Vault

The following C# example retrieves a secret using managed identity.

using Azure.Identity;
using Azure.Security.KeyVault.Secrets;

var vaultUri = new Uri("https://prod-secrets.vault.azure.net/");
var client = new SecretClient(vaultUri, new DefaultAzureCredential());

KeyVaultSecret secret = await client.GetSecretAsync("BillingApiKey");
Console.WriteLine($"Secret length: {secret.Value.Length}");

Rotation Strategy

• Rotate secrets on a fixed schedule with automated pipelines.
• Use dual-write patterns to support phased rollouts.
• Notify services to reload secrets without restart when possible.

Audit and Monitoring

• Log secret access and alert on anomalies.
• Enforce approval workflows for break-glass access.
• Scan code repositories for leaked secrets.

Conclusion

Secrets management is a lifecycle problem, not a storage problem. Combine centralized tooling with automated rotation and strong auditability to keep credentials secure.