How to prioritize your backlog of hardcoded secrets

Secrets in source code pose a significant risk to organizations, as leaks can expose sensitive information such as intellectual property, vulnerabilities, and hardcoded secrets that could be exploited for unauthorized access. Common reasons for secret sprawl include fast-paced software development, lack of formal policies or guidance on secrets management, and developers' tendency to put API keys and credentials in the code for convenience. To mitigate these risks, organizations should adopt proactive policies around source code security, invest in securing secrets, and use tools like Knox, HashiCorp Vault, Azure Key Vault, GitHub Encrypted Secrets, and GitHub secret scanning to manage and detect secrets. Prioritizing the protection of high-risk credentials and implementing least privilege access can also help minimize the impact of a leak.