HashiCorp has released an update to its HashiCorp Vault platform for managing secrets and encrypting data that now includes an internal storage option that eliminates the need to manage a separate storage backend.
Version 1.4 of Vault also adds an OpenLDAP Secrets Engine, which automates the management of static entities within OpenLDAP directories, and the ability to authenticate users and applications using the Kerberos authentication protocol.
HashiCorp has also updated the enterprise edition of Vault to add support for a Transform Secrets Engine that can be used to secure data that reside outside of Vault, such as credit card numbers, by applying tokenization techniques to mask data, as well as a Vault Helm Chart tool that makes it easier to deploy Vault on Kubernetes clusters to the enterprise edition of the tool.
Finally, the enterprise edition of Vault adds improved disaster recovery capabilities and support for NetApp enterprise key management to more easily manage encrypted data.
Chris Kent, director of product marketing for HashiCorp, said thanks to the increased focus on data privacy there is a greater appreciation for the need to maintain application secrets in a platform that resides outside of the core application. Regulations such as the General Data Protection Rule (GDPR) enacted by The European Union and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) penalize companies for losing control over credentials and data. As a result, more organizations are looking for a way to better manage application secrets, noted Kent.
At the same time, cybercriminals are becoming more adept at discovering the credentials of end users that developers sometimes inadvertently leave accessible within their applications, he noted. Vault provides a way to manage and maintain application secrets outside of the application in a way that serves to significantly enhance overall application security.
As developers and cybersecurity teams collaborate more closely as part of any effort to embrace best DevSecOps processes, it’s becoming apparent that a lot more attention must be paid to how application secrets are managed. In fact, arguably one of the biggest impediments to improving the overall security of applications is the way developers have historically managed application secrets. It’s not uncommon for cybercriminals to compromise an application in a way that gives them access to thousands of individual user names and their associated passwords, many of which unfortunately are reused both inside and outside of the extended enterprise. The challenge at this point is not so much making the tools available to manage application secrets as much as it is changing the processes and culture within organizations that are just now starting to embrace DevSecOps.
In general, as organizations become more proficient at managing application secrets the more secure application environments should become. Of course, secrets management is only one aspect of application security. However, the absence of an effective strategy for managing application secrets can prove catastrophic. By the time most IT organizations realize their application secrets have been compromised, it’s usually far too late to undo the damage.
