The secrets lifecycle represent the processes to deploy, install, rotate, and replace secrets. The core asset of the secrets lifecycle are your certificate authorities.
To manually deploy a new certificate, an administrator must follow these steps:
1. Generate a new key pair.
2. Generate a certificate signing request (CSR).
3. Submit the CSR to a Certificate Authority (CA).
4. Retrieve the issued certificate and CA certificate chain from the CA.
5. Install the certificate and CA chain.
6. Configure the application, and often restart the application.
These processes are inherently error-prone and resource intensive. You may find it difficult to manually track the progress of complex, multi-step processes across multiple systems. Manual management of these processes give administrators direct access to private keys, which increases the possibility of private key compromise.