Secrets Management Maturity Model
A 4-stage model to help you assess risk, reduce friction, and build scalable, secure infrastructure.
Secrets are everywhere in modern development, from CI/CD pipelines to cloud configs. But without a clear maturity framework, most teams don’t know how secure or scalable their approach really is. This model breaks down the four stages of secrets management maturity, their business impact, and what it takes to evolve.
Secrets Management Maturity Stages
Stage 1:
Ad Hoc & Manual
Secrets are managed manually, often hardcoded, shared in plaintext, or scattered across systems. There is no visibility or enforcement of access policies.
Stage 2:
Siloed Vaulting
Secrets are stored in a vault, but usage is isolated and inconsistent. Teams still manage access manually and tools don’t integrate well.
Stage 3:
Unified & Automated
Secrets are centrally managed and integrated across environments. Access is automated, versioned, and governed by policy.
Stage 4:
Secretless & Zero-Knowledge
Access is managed through a secretless identity framework, where no secrets are passed or stored. Apps use identity-based access to dynamically retrieve temporary credentials. Zero-knowledge, distributed encryption provides another layer of security.
How Secrets Management Maturity Impacts Your Organization
