Best Practices for Secrets Management, Business Continuity, and Coordinated Credential Rotation

API keys, integration credentials, service accounts, and other sensitive information are essential to many business systems. Managing these credentials securely helps reduce unauthorized access, prevent service interruptions, and ensure that critical integrations can continue operating when team members are unavailable.

This article summarizes common industry best practices across three key areas:

Managing access for multiple authorized administrators
Reducing dependency on a single individual
Coordinating credential rotation and replacement

These recommendations are intended as general guidance. Your organization’s IT, security, and compliance teams should determine the specific controls and processes required for your environment.

1. Managing Access for Multiple Authorized Administrators

When multiple administrators require access to credentials, organizations should establish standardized access controls to reduce security risks and prevent unauthorized activity.

Use Role-Based Access Control

Administrator privileges should be assigned to specific roles rather than managed through shared accounts or informal access arrangements.

Following the principle of least privilege, administrators should only have access to the resources and credentials required to perform their responsibilities.

Use a Centralized Secrets Manager

Critical API keys, credentials, and other secrets should be stored in an approved enterprise secrets management platform, such as:

HashiCorp Vault
CyberArk
AWS Secrets Manager
Azure Key Vault

Rather than sharing individual login credentials, access to the secrets management platform should be controlled through a centralized Identity and Access Management (IAM) system.

Audit and Log Access

Organizations should maintain detailed, immutable audit trails showing:

Which administrator accessed a credential
When the credential was accessed
Which administrator updated a credential
When the credential was updated

Additional Resource

For additional guidance on organizing secrets and assigning access permissions, refer to:

IBM Cloud: Best Practices for Organizing Secrets and Assigning Access

2. Supporting Business Continuity

Relying on one employee to manage essential credentials or perform recovery procedures can create operational risk. Organizations should establish backup access and documented procedures so critical operations can continue when the primary administrator is unavailable.

Establish a Break-Glass Account

Maintain a highly secured, emergency-only administrative account that can be used when normal administrative access is unavailable.

Where appropriate, access to this account may require authorization from multiple individuals.

The account should be reserved for emergency situations and should not be used for routine administrative activities.

Cross-Train and Document

Administrative workflows, manual configurations, deployment steps, and credential-management procedures should be documented in a secure internal repository.

Multiple authorized team members should be trained to manage the credential lifecycle and perform the required administrative procedures.

Assign Designated Backups

Business continuity plans should identify backup personnel for critical infrastructure and credential owners.

Clearly assigning primary and backup administrators helps ensure that required operations can continue during vacations, unexpected absences, employee transitions, or other disruptions.

Additional Resource

For additional guidance on preparing for employee availability gaps and critical vendor dependencies, refer to:

CliftonLarsonAllen: Best Practices for Business Continuity

3. Credential Rotation and Replacement

Regularly replacing API keys and credentials can reduce the amount of time a compromised credential remains valid.

Avoid Hardcoded Secrets

Whenever possible, credentials should not be stored directly in static configuration files, such as web.config, or within application source code and repositories.

Instead, credentials should be provided dynamically at runtime using methods such as:

Environment variables
API-driven secrets vault calls
Approved secrets management platforms

Establish a Coordinated Maintenance Window

Some custom or tightly coupled integrations may require manual configuration changes within both the client environment and the Devensoft environment.

For these integrations, the involved teams should agree on a coordinated maintenance or low-traffic window and follow a documented runbook.

The runbook should include:

The scheduled maintenance period or expected downtime
The process and order for updating the credential
The secure channel that will be used to transmit the new credential
The verification tests that will be completed after deployment

Secure credential-transfer methods may include a one-time secure link or an approved temporary secret-sharing platform.

Verify the Integration After Rotation

After the new credential has been configured, the involved teams should complete agreed verification tests to confirm that the integration continues to operate as expected and to reduce the risk of service disruption.

Plan for Emergency Revocation

The credential-management process should also include an expedited method for immediately revoking and replacing a credential when a security breach or credential exposure is suspected.

Additional Resources

For additional guidance on managing the full secrets lifecycle, including creation, storage, rotation, and revocation, refer to:

OWASP: Secrets Management Cheat Sheet

Microsoft Learn: Best Practices for Protecting Secrets

Disclaimer

This article outlines general industry concepts and recommendations for secure credential management.

Devensoft assumes no responsibility or liability for how these practices are implemented or maintained within client environments.

Clients should consult their internal IT, information security, and compliance teams to ensure that credential storage, access, rotation, and recovery processes comply with their organization’s policies and standards.