DevSec professionals already know the importance of secrets, the sensitive credentials used to digitally authenticate business users so that they can access relevant systems and data for their workflows. Identity and Access Management is already a staple of modern cybersecurity, but what about the unfortunate trend of secret sprawl
Secrets come in the form of usernames, passwords, API keys, SSH certificates and keys, SSL certificates, and many other forms. It’s not surprising then why management often fears that secrets might land in the wrong hands. A malicious third party can gain access to your business’s sensitive resources through secret theft.
What Is Secret Sprawl?
Secret sprawl occurs whenever an organization’s secrets become too heavily distributed throughout the company. Because software development and other business operations require that secrets be shared among multiple entities (such as between developers and applications), the result is many secrets being littered everywhere with little control of their whereabouts.
Secrets might be shared on platforms like Slack or email or might sit in many servers and repositories.
Why Is Sprawl an Issue?
Sprawling secrets result in a larger attack surface, the points where unauthorized hackers could gain access. Every hidden, undocumented secret has a chance of going “rogue,” and a malicious party with access to user credentials can easily compromise other secrets without the management knowing.
Even private internal systems are not ideal for sensitive information, especially when details like credit card payments are stored in a plain-text file. The same holds true for secrets, which need better protection protocols.
How Common Is Secret Sprawl?
Secrets management can be a tricky task. Secrets themselves must be kept secure, but they also must be distributed widely throughout the business to be used. Teams everywhere need them to access the resources and data they need to work.
The implication is that secret sprawl is often unavoidable and requires proper security practices to mitigate. Software development is a hotbed for sprawl due to short release cycles, constantly changing development teams, and collaboration amongst groups in different regions.
Further complicating the issue is the use of version control systems, which keep a history of previous changes to code. Secrets may be hidden accidentally inside this history even after you clear out the current source code of them.
What are common examples of secrets sprawl across software systems?
Secrets sprawl show up in day-to-day development and IT practices when credentials are duplicated, misplaced, or left unmanaged across environments. Typical cases include:
- Hard-coded credentials embedded in application source code or scripts.
- API keys, tokens, and certificates stored in plaintext configuration or YAML files.
- Duplicate secrets scattered across dev, test, and production environments.
- Forgotten credentials exposed in GitHub repositories, CI/CD pipelines, or collaboration tools.
- Shared passwords circulated informally through spreadsheets, chat, or email.
- Secrets stored in wikis, password managers, or removable storage devices, creating uncontrolled copies.
- Credentials left on developer workstations or laptops, outside centralized security controls.
- Secrets spread across third-party SaaS tools and integrations, widening exposure in hybrid and cloud-native environments.
How to detect secrets sprawl?
Detecting secrets sprawl starts with gaining full visibility into where secrets live and how they’re being used. Unmanaged secrets often hide in codebases, configuration files, CI/CD pipelines, and siloed vaults, creating “ticking time bombs” for security teams.
Effective detection requires centralized discovery and monitoring tools that can scan repositories, pipelines, and cloud environments for exposed, duplicate, or outdated secrets. Akeyless’ approach emphasizes intelligent, automated discovery of both human and non-human secrets, combined with auditing and logging to surface orphaned or unused credentials.
By making secrets exposure visible, this proactive detection helps teams identify risks early and prevent attackers from exploiting unmanaged access.
What are the Challenges of Secret Sprawl?
In addition to raising the potential for data breaches, secret sprawl generates a variety of headaches for management and IT professionals.
- It’s incredibly difficult to keep track of everything when secrets can hide in source code, in GitHub repos, or anywhere else. Not having visibility means not having control.
- The third-party services and tools you use might not have secrets management solutions built-in either, meaning controlling secrets within those applications is difficult as well. Dropbox, for instance, does not offer auditing features.
- Sprawl makes it challenging to respond properly in the event of a cybersecurity incident. If a credential is stolen, then how can you determine where it came from and what you can do to remediate it?
- Scaling business operations in the long-term cannot be done easily without addressing secret sprawl. The issue will eventually become a significant obstacle that you cannot ignore when scaling up infrastructure.
Businesses must address secret sprawl before it goes out of hand. Let’s go into some best practices to eliminate secret sprawl.
What’s the Solution?
Secret sprawl results in a lack of visibility and control in an organization. DevOps teams will have little to work with in the event of a cybersecurity incident, so secrets management must address the issue beforehand.
The best weapon you can have against it is centralization. Keeping all your secrets in a single place helps fight the sprawl since you can then control, audit, and protect all your secrets. By using root of trust tactics, one central authority can encrypt everything to ensure only authorized users have the right access.
Having a DevOps secrets vault helps, but it’s also worth investing in access control tools. These features only give out access whenever it’s necessary and keeps track of each granted session. In the event of a breach, the audit logs will tell you who has access and for how long.
Controlling secret sprawl in the cloud is even easier now thanks to cloud-based enterprise key management systems. As long as you have eyes on every aspect of access control in your business, sprawling secrets won’t be nearly as significant of a problem as they could be.
How to prevent secrets sprawl through better secrets management?
The most effective way to prevent secret sprawl is to leverage a centralized secrets management platform that provides full lifecycle control. Centralization enables teams to:
- Enforce least-privilege access and zero policies
- Automate credential rotation and expiration across all environments
- Monitor and audit usage with centralized logging for stronger compliance.
Regular scanning for exposed credentials in pipelines, repositories, and codebases is equally essential to ensure nothing is overlooked. A comprehensive prevention strategy protects against breaches, improves compliance, operational efficiency, and security posture across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
FAQs on secrets sprawl
What is sprawl in security?
In cybersecurity, sprawl refers to the uncontrolled growth or distribution of technology assets, accounts, or credentials that lack centralized oversight. Common examples include secrets sprawl, the unchecked spread of sensitive credentials such as API keys, tokens, certificates, and passwords, and vault sprawl, where multiple isolated vaults proliferate across teams or environments.
Secrets sprawl typically happens when teams hard-code secrets into applications, share them in plaintext files, or use siloed vaults without central oversight.
How can secrets sprawl lead to data breaches?
As organizations adopt cloud, DevOps, and microservices, the number of secrets grows rapidly, making them harder to track and secure. When such secrets are unmanaged, they become one of the easiest ways for attackers to gain unauthorized access. Leaked credentials in code repositories, or mismanaged API keys in cloud environments, can directly expose databases, CI/CD pipelines, or production systems.
What secrets manager should I use to prevent secrets sprawl?
Akeyless recommends using a dedicated secrets management platform that centralizes governance across environments. The right tool should include:
- Automated credential rotation and expiration.
- Zero Trust enforcement through role-based access control (RBAC).
- Built-in compliance reporting and auditing.
- Integrations with cloud providers, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines.
If you have multiple vaults, consider choosing a tool with a feature like the Akeyless Universal Secrets Connector (USC). USC acts as a “manager of managers,” unifying policies and access controls across existing vaults without requiring migrations.
What is vault sprawl?
Vault sprawl occurs when organizations deploy multiple, disconnected secrets vaults across business units, cloud providers, or applications. Over time, each team manages secrets differently, creating fragmented security policies, inconsistent access controls, and limited visibility. The result is higher costs, operational inefficiencies, and greater exposure to risk.
Akeyless’ Universal Secrets Connector addresses vault sprawl by unifying these vaults under a single control plane, enabling enterprises to manage secrets at scale without forced migrations.
What tools help with managing secrets sprawl?
The right tools help prevent secrets sprawl by consolidating and automating secrets management. Modern platforms like Akeyless provide:
- Removal of secrets from code and configuration files.
- Automated secret rotation and expiration.
- Zero Trust enforcement through role-based access control (RBAC).
- Compliance-ready audit trails and monitoring.
- Direct integrations with cloud providers, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines.
How is secrets sprawl related to NHIs?
Secrets sprawl is often driven by the growth of non-human identities (NHIs) such as service accounts, workloads, and automation tokens. Each new application, container, or CI/CD integration introduces additional credentials to manage, with many of them duplicated, inconsistently rotated, or left unsecured.
Akeyless’ non-human identity management (NHIM) framework helps organizations discover, secure, and govern these identities, ensuring secrets tied to NHIs are centrally controlled and aligned with security policies.
