Posted by Suresh Sathyamurthy
February 26, 2025
Why Banking & Finance Institutions Can’t Afford to Ignore Secrets Management
In an era where financial institutions are under constant cyber threats, the question isn’t if a security breach will happen, but when. One leaked API key, a compromised database credential, or an exposed encryption key could mean millions in losses, not to mention reputational damage.
For security professionals in banking and finance, secrets management is no longer an option—it’s a necessity. Without a robust secrets management strategy, banks risk non-compliance fines, regulatory scrutiny, identity hacks and even operational shutdowns.
To the uninitiated, let me first give you a quick overview of what secrets and machine identities (aka Non-Human Identities) are:
Secrets refer to credentials, API keys, database passwords, encryption keys, certificates, and tokens that grant access to sensitive banking systems and applications. Secrets authenticate machine identities. Machines are applications, scripts, automated processes and workloads. Machines have their own identities also referred to as non-human identities. These secrets and machine identities need to be managed and protected for secure machine to machine communications.
Without proper management, these secrets and identities become an easy target for cybercriminals.
Some of the world’s largest banks and financial institutions trust Akeyless Security to manage their secrets and machine/non-human identities. In this blog, I have outlined the top 3 reasons why they chose us. I cannot reveal our customer names here but if you are interested in Akeyless we can certainly connect you with users of our product in other banks who have offered to be 1:1 references.
1. Compliance: Avoid Regulatory Fines and Ensure Risk Governance
Financial institutions operate in one of the most heavily regulated industries. Failing to protect sensitive credentials can lead to massive regulatory fines, sanctions, and loss of customer trust. Key regulations that mandate strong secrets management include:
PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) – Requires encryption and secure storage of cardholder data.
GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) – Mandates encryption and protection of customers’ personal data.
OCC Guidelines – According to the OCC guidelines on cybersecurity, U.S. financial institutions must enforce strict strong authentication and access controls, including secrets protection.
DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act) – Requires financial institutions in the EU to implement strong IT risk management, including securing access credentials.
How Secrets Management Helps:
Encrypts sensitive data and credentials, ensuring compliance with PCI-DSS and GDPR.
Implements access control and audit logs, supporting OCC and DORA requirements.
Prevents exposure of secrets in DevOps pipelines, reducing security gaps in cloud-native banking platforms.
Real-World Impact: In 2020, a major financial services company was fined millions for failing to protect privileged credentials, which led to a data breach exposing millions of customer records. Secrets management tools like Akeyless could have prevented this.
2. Fraud Prevention: Stop Insider Threats and Credential-Based Attacks
Financial institutions are prime targets for cybercriminals due to the high-value data they store.
Cyberattacks leveraging leaked credentials, API keys, and encryption keys are rising at an alarming rate.
Common Attack Vectors in Banking:
Credential stuffing – Attackers use stolen credentials to access banking systems.
Insider threats – Employees or contractors misuse privileged access to siphon funds or data.
API key leaks – Exposed payment gateway credentials lead to unauthorized transactions.
Supply chain attacks – Third-party integrations with weak security expose banking infrastructure.
How Secrets Management Helps:
Eliminates hardcoded secrets in source code, configuration files, and CI/CD pipelines.
Rotates and revokes credentials automatically, preventing unauthorized access.
Secures API tokens and encryption keys, blocking fraudsters from exploiting digital banking apps.
Example: In 2023, an unsecured banking API key was publicly exposed on GitHub, allowing attackers to perform unauthorized financial transactions. A secrets management tool would have prevented this by dynamically managing API keys.
3. Multi-Cloud Security: Protecting Digital Banking at Scale
Banks are rapidly adopting cloud banking and fintech integrations to stay competitive. But moving to multi-cloud environments introduces new security challenges, particularly when managing credentials across AWS, Azure, GCP, and on-premise systems.
Challenges in Multi-Cloud Banking Security:
Secrets sprawl – Credentials are scattered across multiple cloud services, increasing risk.
Lack of centralized visibility – Without a single source of truth and visibility into who has access to secrets, security teams struggle to track and secure them..
Third-party fintech risk – API tokens and encryption keys used in partnerships with fintech providers must be managed securely.
How Secrets Management Helps:
Centralizes secrets storage across on-prem and multi-cloud environments.
Implements fine-grained access control to limit who can access which secrets.
Seamlessly integrates with banking DevOps workflows, ensuring secure deployments.
Example: A leading European bank faced credential leaks across multiple cloud environments, exposing sensitive customer transactions. A secrets management tool with centralized control and audit logging would have prevented this exposure.
Introducing Akeyless: The World’s First Unified Secrets & Machine Identity Platform
As financial institutions face increasing cybersecurity risks, they need a comprehensive, unified approach to secrets management.
Akeyless is the first-ever Unified Secrets and Machine Identity Management Platform that covers the entire lifecycle of secrets and non-human identities, offering:
Zero-Knowledge Encryption – Ensuring only you have access to your secrets.
Just-in-Time Access & Secret Rotation – Eliminating persistent credentials.
Multi-Cloud & Hybrid Support – Securely managing secrets across any environment.
Compliance-Ready Security – Meeting PCI-DSS, DORA, GDPR, and other banking regulations.
Seamless DevOps & API Integration – Automating security for financial applications.
By consolidating secrets management into a unified, scalable platform, Akeyless provides the banking and finance industry with the most advanced protection against credential-based threats.
Final Thoughts: Future-Proofing Your Bank’s Security Strategy
For security professionals in banking and finance, secrets and non-human identity (NHI) management is more than just an IT security concern—it’s a business imperative. A failure to secure credentials and encryption keys can lead to compliance violations, financial fraud, and reputational damage.
With increasing regulatory scrutiny under DORA, PCI-DSS, and GDPR, banks that adopt a strong secrets management framework not only reduce risk but also gain a competitive edge in the financial services industry.
Your next steps? Protect your bank’s most sensitive assets before it’s too late.
