In cybersecurity training, we spend a lot of time talking about people. We teach employees to spot phishing emails, create strong passwords, and avoid plugging in that USB stick they found in the parking lot. But what about the passwords and credentials that aren't used by people at all? What about the ones used by the machines, applications, and systems that run your business?
This is where most security training has a massive blind spot. We're so focused on human credentials that we often forget the digital keys (API tokens, SSH keys, and cloud credentials) our systems use to communicate. The practice of securing these "secrets" is called secrets hygiene, and neglecting it is like leaving the master key to your entire building unguarded on the front desk.
As we discussed in our guide, "From Hack to Back – The Lifecycle Behind Every Cyber Attack and Defense," attackers follow a predictable path. A crucial step in that path is gaining access. When developers embed secret credentials directly into source code or leave them in easily accessible files, they are essentially handing attackers an all-access pass, bypassing many of the defenses you've painstakingly built.
In cybersecurity, a "secret" isn't a juicy piece of gossip. It’s any piece of digital authentication information that grants a non-human entity (like an application, server, or script) access to a system or data. Common examples include:
Secrets hygiene is the comprehensive practice of managing these credentials throughout their entire lifecycle. This includes securely storing, rotating, controlling access to, and monitoring them. Think of it like dental hygiene: it’s not a one-time fix but a continuous set of practices required to prevent decay and disaster. Good secrets hygiene ensures that these powerful credentials don't fall into the wrong hands.
If secrets are so important, why aren't they a standard part of cybersecurity training? The answer lies in a combination of outdated thinking, convenience, and a lack of awareness.
Traditionally, security training has centered on the "user" as the weakest link. Phishing, social engineering, and weak passwords are easy concepts to grasp and visualize. The idea of an application having its own password is more abstract and, until recently, was considered a problem for developers rather than the entire organization. Industry research consistently shows that most organizations still define privileged access primarily in human terms, even though machine identities often hold broader, longer-lasting permissions than people do.
In the rush to develop and deploy new applications, developers often prioritize speed. Hardcoding a secret directly into the source code is fast and easy. It makes the application work right now. Taking the time to use a secure vault, implement an access protocol, and set up rotation schedules takes more effort. This phenomenon, known as "secrets sprawl," leads to credentials being scattered across different environments, some secure and some not, creating a huge, unmanageable attack surface.
You can't protect what you don't know you have. Many businesses simply don't have a centralized inventory of all their machine credentials. Secrets get left in old code repositories, baked into server images, or stored in plain text configuration files. Without visibility, it's impossible to manage them effectively. This isn't just a minor oversight; it’s a ticking time bomb.
The consequences of poor secrets hygiene aren't theoretical. They are real, frequent, and devastating.
A prime example is the 2016 Uber breach. Attackers found AWS access keys hardcoded in a private GitHub repository. Using these keys, they gained access to the personal data of 57 million customers and drivers. This single mistake, leaving a secret in the code, cost Uber over $148 million in fines and settlements, not to mention the immense reputational damage.
More recently, the 2024 Sisense breach is believed to have started when hackers found credentials in the company's private code repositories. These secrets gave them access to Amazon S3 buckets containing sensitive customer data.
When machine credentials are stolen, attackers can move through your systems with the same authority as the legitimate application. They can access databases, steal customer information, and deploy ransomware, all while appearing as trusted traffic. The results can be catastrophic, leading to regulatory fines under GDPR or HIPAA, operational outages, and a complete erosion of customer trust.
Improving your organization's secrets hygiene requires a shift in mindset and tooling. It’s about treating machine credentials with the same (or even greater) level of security as your admin passwords. Here’s how to start.
The first rule of secrets hygiene is to never store secrets in plain text or source code. Instead, use a dedicated secrets management tool or "vault." Services like HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, and Azure Key Vault are designed to securely store these credentials, encrypting them at rest and in transit. This centralizes your secrets, making them easier to manage and monitor.
Just as you wouldn't give every employee the keys to the CEO's office, you shouldn't give every application access to every secret. The principle of least privilege dictates that a machine identity should only have the bare minimum permissions necessary to perform its function. Restricting access reduces the "blast radius" if a credential is ever compromised.
Manually changing passwords is a pain, which is why we rarely do it. The same is true for machine credentials. The solution is automation. Modern secrets management platforms can automatically rotate secrets on a regular schedule (e.g., every 30 days) without any human intervention.
Even better, use dynamic secrets. These are temporary, on-demand credentials that are generated for a specific task and expire automatically after a short period. This eliminates the risk of a long-lived, static credential being stolen and reused.
Your developers and IT staff are your first line of defense. They need to understand the risks of poor secrets hygiene and be trained on the tools and processes for managing them securely. Make it a mandatory part of your development lifecycle. Use automated tools like Gitleaks or TruffleHog to scan code for hardcoded secrets before it gets pushed to production, making security an integrated part of the workflow, not a bottleneck.
You need to know who is accessing your secrets and when. Implement robust logging and monitoring for your secrets vault. This allows you to track usage, detect anomalies (like an application trying to access a secret from an unusual location), and provide a clear audit trail for compliance purposes.
Implementing a robust secrets hygiene program sounds complex, and for many SMBs, it can be. The tools require specialized expertise to configure, and the processes demand a level of discipline that can be difficult to maintain without dedicated security staff.
This is where a partnership becomes invaluable. At CNWR, we don't just respond to threats; we help you build a resilient security posture from the ground up. We understand that security isn't just about firewalls and antivirus; it's about managing every credential, human and machine, across its entire lifecycle.
We can help you assess your current secrets management practices, select and implement the right tools, and integrate secrets hygiene into your development and IT operations. Instead of trying to become experts overnight, you can leverage our decades of experience to protect your business effectively and affordably. Don’t let the credentials that run your business be the ones that ruin it.
Contact CNWR today for a security assessment to evaluate and strengthen your secrets management practices.