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Anubhav Kumar

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The Anubhav portal was launched in March 2015 at the behest of the Hon'ble Prime Minister for retiring government officials to leave a record of their experiences while in Govt service .

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Anubhav Kumar

Anubhav Kumar

05-Feb-2026

Azure Key Vault is a secure cloud service from Microsoft Azure used to store, manage, and protect sensitive information like secrets, encryption keys, and certificates.

Think of it as a central, highly secure vault for anything you don’t want hard-coded in your app or exposed in config files.

What does Azure Key Vault store?

Secrets

  • Passwords
  • API keys
  • Connection strings
  • Tokens

Keys

  • Encryption keys (RSA, AES, etc.)
  • Used for encrypting/decrypting data
  • Supports hardware-backed protection (HSM)

Certificates

  • SSL/TLS certificates
  • Automatic certificate renewal
  • Integration with Azure services

Why use Azure Key Vault?

Security

  • Secrets are encrypted at rest and in transit
  • Supports HSM (Hardware Security Module)

No secrets in code

  • Avoid storing credentials in appsettings.json, source control, or CI pipelines

Access control

  • Uses Azure Active Directory (AAD)
  • Fine-grained permissions (who can read, write, or manage secrets)

Audit & monitoring

  • All access is logged
  • Helps with compliance and security audits

How applications use Key Vault

Apps authenticate using:

  • Managed Identity (recommended)
  • Service principals
  • Secrets are fetched at runtime
  • No passwords required inside the application

Example use case:

A .NET API retrieves its database connection string from Azure Key Vault using Managed Identity instead of storing it in config files.

Common use cases

  • Secure database connection strings
  • Storing API keys for third-party services
  • Managing encryption keys
  • SSL certificate management for apps and gateways

In one line (interview-ready)

Azure Key Vault is a secure service for storing and managing secrets, encryption keys, and certificates with controlled access and auditing, helping applications stay secure without hard-coding sensitive data.

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