Secrets Rotation Patterns

Calendar February 21, 2026
Security
Intermediate
Secrets-Rotation, Vault-Dynamic-Secrets, Zero-Downtime-Credential-Updates, Rotation-Monitoring
Secrets, Rotation, Vault, Kubernetes, Database-Credentials, Api-Keys, Cert-Manager, External-Secrets
Vault, External-Secrets-Operator, Cert-Manager, Reloader, Kubectl, Aws-Secrets-Manager

Why Rotation Matters#

A credential that never changes is a credential waiting to be exploited. Leaked credentials appear in git history, log files, CI build outputs, developer laptops, and third-party SaaS tools. If a database password has been the same for two years, every person who has ever had access to it still has access – former employees, former contractors, compromised CI systems.

Regular rotation limits the blast radius. A credential that rotates every 24 hours is only useful for 24 hours after compromise. Compliance frameworks (PCI-DSS, SOC2, HIPAA) mandate rotation schedules. But compliance aside, rotation is a pragmatic defense: assume credentials will leak and make the leak time-limited.

Zero Trust Networking

Calendar February 21, 2026
Security
Intermediate
Zero-Trust-Architecture, Wireguard-Configuration, Tailscale-Acl-Management, Boundary-Session-Management
Zero-Trust, Wireguard, Tailscale, Boundary, Beyondcorp, Vpn, Mtls, Spiffe
Wireguard, Tailscale, Boundary, Istio, Linkerd, Spire

The Core Principle#

Zero trust networking operates on a simple premise: no network location is inherently trusted. Being inside the corporate network, inside a VPC, or inside a Kubernetes cluster does not grant access to anything. Every request must be authenticated, authorized, and encrypted regardless of where it originates.

This is a departure from the traditional castle-and-moat model where a VPN places you “inside” the network and everything inside is implicitly trusted. That model fails because attackers who breach the perimeter have unrestricted lateral movement. Zero trust eliminates the concept of inside versus outside.