I. Introduction

Applications typically requires secrets injected in order to launch. For example, secrets can be API Token form external services or database access credentials. If you are hosting applications on AWS, you can use Secret Manager to store secrets and inject to your applications. Using the service, you can ensure that secrets are not part of git commits, but also have a single source of truth to manage secrets for your applications.

II. How to secure sensitive application data with Secret Manager

Use cases:

• Application that needs secure environment variable
• Application that wants to rotate passwords

How to secure sensitive application data with Secret Manager

First, login to the AWS account where you want to create your secrets. Go to the region you where your resources should be located and visit the Secret manager.

Then you can follow these steps to create secret for your applications:

1. Click on button Store a new secret
2. 1. For Secret type, choose Other type of secret. and the choose the Plaintext
3. Paste the secret value
4. For Encryption key, choose aws/secretmanager to use the AWS managed key. The is no additional cost if we use this key
5. On the Secret name and description page, enter value for Secret name and Description
6. Optionally, in the Tags section, you can add tags for the secret
7. Click on Next