The breach started with one stale password.

MVP password rotation policies stop that from happening. They are the simplest way to reduce attack surface without slowing down development. When accounts hold static credentials for months, they become targets. Rotation policies replace those credentials on a fixed schedule or after certain triggers, making stolen passwords useless.

An MVP approach focuses on minimal yet vital controls. Define the rotation interval. Automate the replacements. Enforce it across all environments. Integrate with version control, CI/CD pipelines, and secret managers so no manual step is missed. For most teams, 30–90 days is a practical starting point. Shorter intervals are safer but demand stronger automation.

Automation is critical. Manual rotation leaves gaps. Use tools that integrate with your authentication systems to generate, update, and distribute new credentials without exposing them in plaintext. Infrastructure-as-Code templates and API-driven secret vaults make this seamless.

Plan for detection as well as prevention. No rotation policy is complete without logging, alerting, and audit trails. Track who accessed the secret, when it was rotated, and whether old credentials were fully revoked. Without this, the policy is blind.

Common mistakes include rotating only user passwords while leaving service accounts static, forgetting API keys, or failing to remove old credentials from configuration files. Successful MVP password rotation policies cover every credential type: human, machine, and integration accounts.

The policy should be enforceable by code, not by culture. Scripts don’t forget. Pipelines don’t ignore instructions. Build it into deployment steps so rotation is automatic, mandatory, and immune to human error. The moment you detect compromise or see suspicious activity, trigger immediate rotation outside the regular schedule.

Strong password rotation is part of a broader credential hygiene strategy, but it’s the fastest, most measurable win. Deploy it fast, test it, and measure success by reduced exposure time for any single password.

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