In the whirlwind of modern software development, teams race against time, constantly pushing the boundaries of innovation and efficiency. This relentless pace is fueled by an evolving technology landscape, where the dominance of SaaS, the proliferation of microservices, and the ubiquity of CI/CD pipelines are not just trends but the new norm.
In this context, a critical aspect is subtly woven into the narrative: the management of non-human identities. The need to manage API keys, passwords and other sensitive data becomes more than just a checklist item, but is often overshadowed by the sprint towards faster releases and cutting-edge features. The challenge is clear: How do software teams maintain the sanctity of secrets without slowing down?
Challenges in the development phase of nonhuman identities
The pressure to deliver quickly in today’s organizations can lead developers to take shortcuts, compromising security. Secrets are credentials used for non-human identities. Some standard practices such as hardcoding secrets or reusing them in different environments are quite well known. But while they can accelerate workload, they open the door to significant vulnerabilities. Let us discuss these challenges and vulnerabilities further:
- Coded secrets: Embedding secrets directly into source code is a popular but risky practice. Not only does it make secrets easily accessible in the event of a code leak, but it also creates a real challenge to keep track of and complicates the process of rotating and managing secrets. When secrets are hardcoded, updating them becomes a cumbersome task, often overlooked in the rush of development.
- Scalability challenges: As systems grow, so does the complexity of managing the security of secrets. Large-scale infrastructures and cloud-native environments compound the difficulty of tracking and protecting a growing number of secrets spread across various systems and platforms.
- Compliance and audit challenges: Ensuring compliance with the various regulations becomes difficult in the face of so many secrets. In dynamic development environments, keeping an eye on how secrets are used and preventing their misuse is essential, but can be difficult.
- Integration with IAM systems: Any robust secrets management system ideally integrates effortlessly with IAM systems to improve security and streamline processes. However, aligning these systems to work cohesively is often a significant challenge.
Why is the protection of non-human identities overlooked during software development?
In the world of software development, the relentless drive for speed often overshadows the equally crucial aspect of security, particularly when handling sensitive information. This disdain stems from the prevailing mindset that governs the development process, where priorities lie in introducing new features, fixing bugs, and meeting tight product launch deadlines. The developer onboarding and offboarding process is also becoming shorter and shorter, leaving room for errors and vulnerabilities in the rush.
For many developers, immediate functional requirements and user experience improvements take precedence. The concept of a security breach resulting from mismanagement of sensitive data often seems distant, especially when there are no immediate consequences or mechanisms in the development cycle that highlight the associated risks. This mindset is further entrenched in environments without a strong security culture or adequate training, leading developers to treat secrets and non-human identity management as an afterthought.
This imbalance between prioritizing development speed and ensuring robust security creates a dangerous blind spot. While rapid development offers tangible, immediate benefits, the benefits of implementing comprehensive secrets management, such as preventing potential breaches and safeguarding confidential data, are more nuanced and long-lasting.
Why is the shift-left approach to security no longer sufficient?
The “shift-left” approach to software security, which prioritizes integrating security early in the development lifecycle, marks a positive advance. However, it is not a panacea solution. While it effectively addresses vulnerabilities in the early stages, it fails to address the ongoing nature of security challenges throughout the software development journey. In the process of moving left, overlooking expired secrets can lead to build failures and significant slowdowns in the pace of development.
On the other hand, a developer-centric security strategy recognizes that security should be an ongoing and pervasive concern. Simply adopting security measures is not enough; it must be a coherent thread woven through each stage of development. This requires a cultural shift within security and engineering teams, recognizing that security is no longer solely the responsibility of security professionals but a shared obligation for all involved.
6 Best Practices for Securing Nonhuman Identity and Secrets During Development
Organizations need to get out of the mindset that security in development is just another checkpoint and embrace it as the art that blends into the canvas of coding. Here are some best practices to help materialize this image:
- Centralized management of secrets: Imagine a scenario where all your secrets are consolidated in one accessible place, easy to monitor and supervise. Using a centralized method for managing secret vaults simplifies the process of monitoring and regulating them. However, in today’s landscape, relying on a single secure secret repository is no longer practical. Instead, you are likely to have multiple repositories per environment, including various types such as Kubernetes secrets, GitHub secrets, a master repository, and others. The most effective approach is to adopt a centralized secrets management and security platform that seamlessly connects to all these vaults, providing the complete solution needed to effectively manage your secrets.
- Access Control: Access to non-human identities should be as tight as security in a top-secret facility. Using strong authentication practices, such as multi-factor authentication, plays a critical role in safeguarding sensitive data by ensuring that access is restricted to authorized users only.
- CI/CD pipeline security: The CI/CD pipeline is the critical infrastructure of the software development lifecycle. Integrating continuous security scanning within the pipeline helps identify vulnerabilities in real time, ensuring each build is efficient, secure, and free of secrets.
- Threat modeling and code reviews: Identifying potential threats early in the development phase and carefully examining the code for exposed secrets is like undergoing a quality check at every stage.
- Incident response plan: When the unexpected hits, this plan is your go-to guide for an interesting, thoughtful response. It’s about rapid containment, a thorough investigation and clear communication. After the breach, you have the opportunity to turn hindsight into foresight, perfecting your defenses for the next round.
- Secure coding frameworks and server configuration: Using secure coding libraries and frameworks and ensuring servers are configured with a secure mindset provides a solid foundation for keeping development secrets safe.
Incorporating these practices into your daily workflow makes becoming the keeper of your secrets a natural part of the development process.
I enter: A case study in efficient secrets management
Concluding our deep dive into protecting non-human identities during development, it’s clear that with the right secrets management tools and strategies, you can go a long way on your cybersecurity journey, which brings us to Entro.
Entro comes with an interesting and unobtrusive approach to improve the management of non-human identity and development secrets without getting in the way of the R&D team. It’s almost as if the team behind the scenes at a concert makes sure everything works without the audience noticing. It works completely out of band, via APIs and read logs, ensuring your secrets are safe without requiring code or spotlight changes.
Additionally, Entro differentiates itself in the security arena in development with features that make secrets management more secure and intelligent. One of its key features is secret enrichment, where Entro adds layers of context to secrets, giving them their own profile: who owns that secret, who created it, its rotation history, and the privileges it holds.
With Entro, you can know exactly who is using which secret and for what, keeping everything tight and correct. Click here to find out more.