Securing your secrets in AWS

Secrets and credentials are everywhere, we use them to access third party systems. Securing secrets and protecting our credentials and passwords is not a trivial matter. So much so, that a major theme throughout any software platform or technical product is **Credential Management**. This article dives into everything you need to know, the issues with current strategies, and recommended solutions for improved security of credentials.

What are credentials?

In any software, platform, or application that involves more than one user, you will have to deal with authentication. And when you have more than one service or microservices, you will have to deal with credentials. That’s because with multiple entities comes the interaction and integration between those entities.

We need clear identification so we can ensure that the appropriate caller has the correct authorization for the actions they want to perform. An example would be when your application needs to integrate with a third party service provider, like AWS, GGP or a payments provider, such as Stripe. Or when technical users of your application interact with your application’s API, you’ll need to provide them a way to securely access their resources. Lastly, you might have multiple internal applications or services that communicate with each other. This last one is heavily covered in-depth in Machine to Machine Authentication.

Check out the comprehensive guide: available here.

Originally published at https://authress.io on July 24, 2024.