SSH has been the preferred protocol for ensuring security in remotely accessing other computers and in data transfer. The key-based authentication to allow access to SSH servers presents certain unique challenges.
The public keys are deployed on the servers, and the respective users handle the private keys. If a private key lands in a malicious user’s hands, it grants unauthorized access to the device. These keys typically do not expire, and they can work across multiple servers. Likewise, the same user might have numerous keypairs to access a single server. Manually tracking the keys and their association is a daunting task.
In the DevOps environment, the keys and other types of credentials used to access CI/CD pipeline tools, version control systems, databases, services, and applications are hardcoded/stored in plain-text in various places.
Secrets keep proliferating in DevOps environments, and it becomes difficult to trace where all the secrets are located and who all have access to them. When the secrets are hardcoded, many times, keys are accidentally leaked on log files, exception traces, crash reports, debugging statements, and so on. DevOps teams should follow security best practices to safeguard their data.
IT and DevOps teams need tools to manage the SSH keys and DevOps secrets properly.
Centralized management
Securden Password Vault helps you to consolidate all the keys and secrets to the central vault. You can associate the keys with the relevant devices and track usage.
Eliminate hardcoding
Store all DevOps credentials in Securden and eliminate the dangerous practice of hardcoding secrets on tools and applications. The tools can fetch the secrets from Securden.
Auto launch connections
When storing SSH keys, users can launch direct connections with the remote SSH servers using the private keys stored in Securden.
Track and audit all access
Just as passwords, continuously track all access to the keys and secrets. Generate reports to find ‘who’ all have access to the keys and secrets.
