Secrets Rotation

Table of Contents

• Overview
• When to Use
• Quick Start
• Reference Guides
• Best Practices

Overview

Implement automated secrets rotation strategy for credentials, API keys, certificates, and encryption keys with zero-downtime deployment and comprehensive audit logging.

When to Use

• API key management
• Database credentials
• TLS/SSL certificates
• Encryption key rotation
• Compliance requirements
• Security incident response
• Service account management

Quick Start

Minimal working example:

// secrets-manager.js
const AWS = require("aws-sdk");
const crypto = require("crypto");

class SecretsManager {
  constructor() {
    this.secretsManager = new AWS.SecretsManager({
      region: process.env.AWS_REGION,
    });

    this.rotationSchedule = new Map();
  }

  /**
   * Generate new secret value
   */
  generateSecret(type = "api_key", length = 32) {
    switch (type) {
      case "api_key":
        return crypto.randomBytes(length).toString("hex");

      case "password":
        // Generate strong password
        const chars =
          "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789!@#$%^&*";
// ... (see reference guides for full implementation)

Reference Guides

Detailed implementations in the references/ directory:

Guide	Contents
Node.js Secrets Manager with Rotation	Node.js Secrets Manager with Rotation
Python Secrets Rotation with Vault	Python Secrets Rotation with Vault
Kubernetes Secrets Rotation	Kubernetes Secrets Rotation

Best Practices

✅ DO

• Automate rotation
• Use grace periods
• Verify new secrets
• Maintain rotation audit trail
• Implement rollback procedures
• Monitor rotation failures
• Use managed services (AWS Secrets Manager)
• Test rotation procedures

❌ DON'T

• Hardcode secrets
• Share secrets
• Skip verification
• Rotate without grace period
• Ignore rotation failures
• Store secrets in version control