.NET Architecture & System Design Interview Question #159

What is secrets management?

Security Architecture, Multi-Tenancy & Disaster Recovery Senior Advanced

Quick Interview Answer

Secrets management is the controlled storage, distribution, rotation, and auditing of sensitive values such as API keys, database passwords, certificates, and signing credentials.

Detailed Explanation

Secrets management is the controlled storage, distribution, rotation, and auditing of sensitive values such as API keys, database passwords, certificates, and signing credentials.

Secrets should not be committed to source control or embedded in application binaries. Production systems should use a dedicated secret store or platform capability and grant applications access through appropriate workload identities.

Code Example

Source code:
NO production password

Application identity
      |
Secret Store
      |
retrieve authorized secret