Visibility of Secrets and Certificates with Vault Enterprise 1.20

Here in this blog, we will learn about the Visibility of secrets and certificates with Vault Enterprise 1.20.

The latest release of HashiCorp Vault Enterprise 1.20 brings a host of powerful new features aimed at simplifying secure workflows and delivering deeper visibility into how secrets are managed across the organization. Two major highlights of this release include enhanced certificate management through SCEP integration and a new usage reporting dashboard that provides critical operational insights.

Automated Certificate Lifecycle Management with SCEP

Vault 1.20 introduces support for the Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol (SCEP), significantly improving Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) capabilities. SCEP is a widely adopted protocol that automates certificate issuance, renewal, and revocation processes, especially beneficial in environments where managing certificates manually is cumbersome or impractical.

By integrating SCEP, Vault enables secure certificate enrollment across a broad range of devices and systems, supporting use cases such as:

• Mobile Device Management (MDM): Automatically distributes certificates to smartphones, tablets, and laptops, providing seamless access to secure Wi-Fi, VPNs, and email systems.
• Internet of Things (IoT): Supports large-scale IoT deployments where devices require secure identities but lack interfaces for manual configuration.
• Enterprise Infrastructure: Network devices like routers, firewalls, and switches can obtain certificates effortlessly, simplifying administration at scale.
• Dynamic Workloads: Containers and virtual machines, which are often short-lived and deployed frequently, benefit from automatic certificate provisioning.
• Remote Access: VPN clients and remote desktops can be securely authenticated using certificates issued via SCEP.

This protocol not only reduces administrative overhead but also enforces a consistent security standard across a diverse set of workloads and environments.

Improved Insight with Vault Usage Reporting

Understanding how Vault is used throughout the organization is key to maintaining security and operational efficiency. Vault 1.20 introduces usage reporting capabilities designed to provide actionable insights into secrets management practices.

The reporting dashboard allows teams to monitor:

• The number of active leases, categorized by authentication method
• Total and percentage-based lease utilization
• The use of various secret engines and PKI roles
• The count of namespaces, key-value secrets, and synced secrets

With these insights, platform and security teams can better:

• Identify usage patterns and areas for growth
• Refine configurations for improved performance
• Ensure compliance with organizational security policies

By combining automation with visibility, Vault Enterprise 1.20 empowers organizations to scale securely while reducing the operational burden on administrators and security teams.