Secret Leak Remediation

Secret Leak Remediation

Standard operating procedure for handling accidentally committed secrets.

When to use

• When operating in the security domain.
• When resolving incidents related to secret leak remediation.

When not to use

• If the issue requires manual human intervention.
• If the domain does not apply.

Triggers

• Pattern: secret-leak-remediation
• Keywords: security, secret

Inputs

• Context from the current user session or incident report.

Steps

1. Step 1

Immediately revoke the compromised API key or secret in the provider's dashboard.

2. Step 2

Identify the commit(s) where the secret was introduced.

3. Step 3

Use BFG Repo-Cleaner or git filter-repo to scrub the secret from the repository history.

4. Step 4

Generate a new secret, update the environment variables, and verify application functionality.

Success signals

• The task is resolved without regressions.
• Logs confirm the procedure was successfully applied.

Failure modes

• Incorrect application of the steps leading to side effects.

Safety notes

• Always verify changes in a staging environment before applying to production.
• Do not execute destructive commands without explicit authorization.