Modern enterprises do not set out to create a maze of credentials, keys, and secrets stores. However, this is the reality most organizations find themselves in as they ship applications faster than ever, creating many new non-human identities (NHIs) in the process. Any issues around secrets management are typically solved by isolated teams working in silos, using whatever tools are available.
We can refer to the end result of these disjointed efforts around secrets management as "Vault Sprawl."
Vault sprawl is the uncontrolled growth of secret storage systems across an organization, driven by the rapid creation of new secrets needed to allow new workloads, scripts, bots, and now, agents to securely authenticate.
It shows up as multiple vault products and secret stores running at the same time, separate vault instances per team or environment, and the same credentials duplicated across tools because migrations are slow and integrations are uneven. Over time, it becomes difficult to answer basic questions like where a given secret lives, which copy is authoritative, and who can access it today.
Secrets Sprawl Sets The Stage For Vault Sprawl
