AWS Secrets Manager

Abhishek Shukla
2 min readFeb 15, 2023

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Do not hardcode secrets in your code and rotate keys

AWS Secret Manager is a fully managed service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that helps you protect and manage sensitive information such as passwords, API keys, database credentials, and other secrets. It provides a secure and central location for storing and accessing secrets, eliminating the need to hardcode them in applications or configuration files.

AWS Secret Manager allows you to store secrets as key-value pairs and provides capabilities for automatic rotation, auditing, and access control. It integrates with other AWS services and can be easily accessed by applications running on AWS or outside the AWS environment.

Some key features of AWS Secret Manager include:

  1. Secret Storage: Secrets are encrypted at rest and in transit, and they are stored in a highly available and scalable manner.
  2. Secret Rotation: AWS Secret Manager supports automatic rotation of secrets, allowing you to regularly update credentials without impacting the applications using them.
  3. Access Management: Fine-grained access control allows you to manage who can access and modify secrets by using AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies.
  4. Integration with AWS Services: Secrets stored in AWS Secret Manager can be easily accessed by other AWS services such as AWS Lambda, Amazon RDS, Amazon EC2, and more.
  5. Integration with External Applications: You can retrieve secrets from AWS Secret Manager programmatically using the AWS SDKs or through the AWS Management Console, making it convenient for both AWS and non-AWS applications.
image reference : https://aws.amazon.com/secrets-manager/

Use Cases

  • Store secrets securely : Centrally store and manage credentials, API keys, and other secrets.
  • Manage access with fine-grained policies : Use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) permissions policies to manage access to your secrets.
  • Automate secrets rotation : Rotate secrets on demand or on a schedule, without redeploying or disrupting active applications.
  • Audit and monitor secrets usage : Integrate secrets with AWS logging, monitoring, and notification services.

Summary

By utilizing AWS Secret Manager, you can enhance the security and management of your sensitive information, reducing the risk of unauthorized access or exposure of credentials in your applications.

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Abhishek Shukla

Having 20+ years of IT experience , Enterprise architect . Azure Solution architect expert, Microsft certified trainer, AWS cloud practioner (CLF-C01)