Identity Stored in Plaintext

Risk Category

Storage

Risk Description

Storing NHIs in plaintext offers no encryption to guard credentials, significantly raising the risk of attack. Learn best practices to reduce this danger now.

Why It’s a Risk

Storing credentials in plaintext makes it easy for attackers to access sensitive information, leading to unauthorized access, data breaches, or service disruptions. Plaintext storage leaves no encryption layer to protect credentials, increasing the risk of exploitation.

Likelihood of Occurrence

MODERATE

Medium, particularly in older systems or environments without strict encryption policies.

Impact Level

HIGH

High to critical, as plaintext identities are easily compromised, leading to data breaches or unauthorized access.

Mitigation Strategy

Detect and encrypt all identities stored in plaintext, ensuring that all credentials are moved to secure storage solutions. Implement strict access controls and enforce Zero Trust validation of every consumer to prevent unauthorized use of exposed identities.

Playbooks in Clutch

110

Applies for:

  • Cloud Service Provider

    AWSAzureGCP
  • Vault

    AWS Secrets ManagerGCP Secret ManagerHashicorp Vault
  • Source Manager

    BitbucketGithubGitlab
  • CI/CD

    CircleCIGithub ActionsJenkinsTeamcity
  • Password Manager

    1PasswordLastpass
  • EDR

    CrowdstrikeSentinelOneMicrosoft Defender
  • Data

    AWS RedShiftMongo DB AtlasMySQLPostgreSQLSnowflake
  • Network

    AkamaiCloudflare
  • PaaS

    AKSEKSGKEK8S
  • Collaboration

    Atlassian ConfluenceNotion
  • Project Management

    Atlassian Jira
  • Log Analytics

    DatadogElasticSplunk
  • IDP

    Google WorkspaceJumpCloudMicrosoft Entra IDOkta
  • CRM

    HubspotSalesforce
  • MDM

    IntuneJamf
  • IM

    Microsoft TeamsSnowflake
  • Ticketing

    ServiceNowZendesk
  • Automation

    TinesTorq
  • HRIS

    Bamboo HRHiBob
  • SIEM

    Exabeam (LogRhythm)Sumo Logic