Best Practices for Password Rotation Policies in SRE

Rotation policies are your first line of defense. For Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), the stakes are higher—downtime, data loss, and trust collapse can follow minutes after a leaked credential.

What is a password rotation policy?
A password rotation policy defines how often passwords must be changed and under what conditions. It enforces expiration timelines, ensures compromised credentials are quickly replaced, and keeps risk windows short. In SRE workflows, it’s not optional. Rotation must be automated, monitored, and auditable.

Why rotation matters in SRE
Systems managed by SRE teams often hold privileged credentials—database roots, API keys, SSH access to production nodes. These passwords can be shared across tools, scripts, and team members. Without a strict rotation policy, stale credentials remain active, increasing the attack surface. Even if you trust your team, credentials can leak via logs, screenshots, or misconfigured storage.

Best practices for password rotation policies in SRE

1. Automate rotation – Manual changes are error-prone and slow. Use secure orchestration tools to trigger password updates without human intervention.
2. Centralize credential storage – Store passwords in a managed vault instead of scattered configs or plaintext files.
3. Set short lifespans – Define maximum usage periods for passwords. Rotate them every 60–90 days, or immediately after suspected compromise.
4. Audit rotation events – Log every password change. Verify rotations occur as scheduled, and investigate anomalies.
5. Embed rotation into deployments – Trigger rotations alongside CI/CD releases to streamline compliance and security.

Common pitfalls to avoid
- Reusing old passwords.
- Forgetting linked credentials in scripts or service accounts.
- Failing to update dependent systems after rotation.
- Overcomplicating rotation frequency, causing operational friction.

Integrating password rotation policies with SRE tooling
Modern SRE stacks integrate vault services, cloud IAM tools, and secrets management APIs. Rotation policies should connect directly to these layers. Alerts, metrics, and dashboard visibility keep rotations aligned with uptime goals. The policy isn’t just a security checkbox—it’s part of maintaining the reliability of every system you manage.

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