Machine identities are the epicenter of modern digital infrastructures, but are they secure enough? At the Machine Identity Management Summit, Chris Smith (Product Marketing Director for Machine Identities & DevOps at CyberArk) and Jeremy Patton (Senior DevSecOps SME at CyberArk) delivered a session on an urgent question: are we doing enough to protect machine identities beyond certificates? Protecting certificates is critical, but it’s only the start. Secrets, much like certificates, play a crucial role in ensuring secure communication between machines, and they must be secured with equal priority.
This blog will explore the broader landscape of machine identity security, with a spotlight on the importance of protecting secrets. We’ll also share practical steps to secure both secrets and certificates in their environments that you use to get started on your digital transformation today.
Understanding Machine Identities: More Than Just Certificates
The Expanding Role of Machine Identities
The term “identity" is often associated with people, including workforce members, IT personnel, and developers who authenticate into systems. But now machines identities, not human identities, are dominating. Cloud workloads, IoT devices, DevOps pipelines, containerized applications, and APIs have significantly increased the number of machine identities in use.
These machine identities typically fall into two categories:
- Certificates: Used for authentication and encryption, certificates establish secure communication between systems.
- Secrets: These include API keys, tokens, passwords, cloud access keys, and more. Like certificates, these
secrets are vital for enabling secure communication between machines.
Both are essential for modern infrastructure. While organizations have improved certificate management processes, the security of secrets is too often ignored.
Why Secrets Are as Important as Certificates
Protecting secrets is just as important for organizations as securing certificates. Secrets, which can take the form of API keys or tokens, enable applications and systems to authenticate and communicate securely. But when secrets are neglected, businesses face serious risks.
- Mismanaged secrets can grant attackers direct
access to highly sensitive systems. - A typical modern enterprise has 45x more secrets than privileged human passwords.
Secrets are as much a part of the machine identity ecosystem as certificates. Focusing on certificate management while neglecting secrets would be like locking your front door and leaving the window open.
Common Challenges in Secrets Management
Securing secrets is no simple task. Organizations face a range of challenges that make secrets management complicated, including the following:
1. Secrets Sprawl
Secrets are everywhere, including applications, cloud environments, DevOps pipelines, and tools like CI/CD. This widespread distribution makes them hard to track, let alone secure.
2. Poor Storage Practices
Organizations often mishandle secrets due to improper storage, such as:
- Hardcoded Secrets: Secrets embedded directly into source code, making them accessible to anyone reviewing the code.
- Static Secrets: Secrets stored in configuration files without any lifecycle management.
- Unrotated Secrets: Secrets that are valid indefinitely, leaving systems vulnerable.
3. Lack of Centralized Oversight
One of the most common problems is a fundamental lack of visibility. Many organizations don’t have an inventory of where secrets exist, making it impossible to secure them.
Certificates, Secrets, and Access Control: A Step-by-Step Approach
To fully secure machine identities, including both certificates and secrets, a structured approach will make it much easier to get started. Here's what you can do:
Step 1: Discovery
You can’t secure what you don’t know about! Start by identifying all unmanaged secrets and certificates across
your environment. Gain visibility into their location, usage, and potential vulnerabilities is the only way to start a management and security strategy.
Step 2: Centralization
Store and manage all secrets in a secure vault. Centralized management reduces the risk of mismanagement and
ensures easier access controls. Solutions like CyberArk’s Secrets Manager can help organizations securely store and access critical secrets.
Step 3: Automation
Manual handling of secrets is risky and unsustainable, especially as the number of secrets is growing
exponentially. Automate the lifecycle management of secrets by enabling:
- Regular rotation to prevent stale secrets.
- Dynamic creation and expiration to limit vulnerabilities.
Step 4: Continuous Monitoring
Implement tools to monitor all machine identities in real time. This enables prompt detection and mitigation
of leaked secrets before they can be exploited.
Why This Matters and How You Can Get Started
The scale of machine identities is outpacing traditional security measures. Organizations must act now, recognizing the urgency of securing not just certificates but also secrets, to ensure end-to-end protection.
Key takeaways from the Machine Identity Security Summit session emphasize why this is non-negotiable:
- Machine identities power our digital systems, but they are increasingly at risk due to the improper management of secrets.
- Secrets represent the new frontier for attackers, underscoring the importance of protecting them alongside certificates.
CyberArk + Venafi's Secrets Management Solution
To help organizations rise to these challenges, CyberArk and Venafi, a CyberArk company, offer robust,
end-to-end solutions for securing all types of machine identities:
- Secrets Discovery Assessment: Scan your environment for exposed secrets.
- Automated Secrets Management: Transition from manual to automated rotation
systems.
Protecting secrets is within your reach—and it's easier than you think. Check out the full session
on-demand for more insights into secrets management, or contact our experts today to kickstart your digital transformation with comprehensive machine identity security.
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