Definition
The systematic removal of hard-coded credentials from source code to prevent accidental exposure and unauthorized access.
How it Works
Credential Scrubbing involves identifying and eliminating hard-coded credentials such as usernames, passwords, API keys, and tokens from source code repositories. These credentials should be managed securely using environment variables, secret management tools, or secure vaults where they can be safely accessed when needed.
Considerations
- Developers should conduct regular audits of source code to ensure credentials are not hard-coded.
- Exposed credentials found in version control history must be disabled and replaced promptly.
- Adopt role-based access controls and credential rotation policies to minimize security risks.
Implementation perspective
Credential Scrubbing should be treated as a technical defensive capability rather than a product checkbox. In practice, teams should define the protected scope, the conditions under which the technique acts, and the observable evidence that demonstrates the intended behavior. For this technique, likely engineering context includes Subroutine.
Use the technique to increase the effort, prerequisites, or constraints an adversary must overcome before exploitation or misuse succeeds.
Questions to ask
- Which component, configuration, credential, interface, or behavior is being hardened?
- What secure baseline or policy defines the intended state?
- How are exceptions approved, time-limited, and reviewed?
- How is the hardened state verified after deployment and significant change?
Evidence and validation
- Approved hardening standards and configuration baselines
- Automated configuration or integrity assessment results
- Exception records with owners, rationale, and expiration dates
- Test results demonstrating that the intended restriction is enforced
Common failure patterns
- A secure setting is documented but not enforced consistently across the environment.
- Hardening breaks required functions and is permanently weakened through undocumented exceptions.
- Teams measure deployment of a product rather than verification of the hardened condition.
This implementation perspective is original Bare Metal Cyber educational content. It does not replace the official D3FEND definition or establish that a specific product implements the technique.
Technique hierarchy
Top-level family
Parent techniques
Direct child techniques
None listed at this level.
Artifacts and ontology entities
These relationships describe how D3FEND connects a defensive technique to artifacts or other ontology entities. They describe graph semantics, not a product certification.
Explicit technique relationships
Show inferred artifact relationship paths (1)
Offensive-technique relationships
These relationships are generated from D3FEND graph paths and are explicitly experimental. They should be treated as hypotheses for defensive analysis—not as proof that the technique prevents, detects, or removes an offensive behavior.
ATT&CK Enterprise (1)
Authoritative sources
- Open this technique on the official D3FEND website ↗
- Open the official ontology resources ↗
- Secrets Management Cheat Sheet ↗OWASP · InternetArticleReference
- Related source ↗
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