Azure Key Vault is essential for secure management of secrets, keys, and certificates. Below are key security-focused best practices to design a robust, compliant, and resilient implementation.

1. Use Separate Vaults per Environment

  • Create dedicated vaults for Development, Testing, and Production.
  • Apply environment-specific access controls.
  • Reduce the blast radius and avoid accidental sharing or overwriting across environments.

2. Set Expiration & Automate Rotation

  • Configure expiration dates for all secrets, keys, and certificates.
  • Automate rotation with Azure Logic Apps or Azure Functions.
  • Use Key Vault references in Azure App Services to consume updated secrets without redeploying code.

3. Enable Logging & Monitoring

  • Send activity logs to Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, or Storage Accounts.
  • Track who accessed what, when, and from where.
  • Integrate with Azure Sentinel to enable threat detection and automated alerting.

4. Restrict Network Access

  • Use Private Endpoints to limit access to resources within your Virtual Network.
  • Configure IP firewall rules to allow only trusted sources.
  • Enable only necessary Microsoft trusted services access.

5. Use Azure RBAC Instead of Access Policies

  • Prefer Azure RBAC for fine-grained, manageable access control.
  • Assign roles like Key Vault Secrets User with least privilege.
  • Avoid using the built-in Contributor role, as it grants excessive permissions. Create a custom role that excludes sensitive actions (e.g., vault deletion).

6. Enable Soft Delete & Purge Protection

  • Protect secrets, keys, and certificates from accidental or malicious deletion.
  • Enable Soft Delete and Purge Protection to ensure recovery is always possible.

7. Lock the Key Vault Resource

  • Apply resource locks (e.g., “CanNotDelete”) to prevent accidental or unauthorized deletion of the vault itself.
  • Especially important in Production environments.