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Effective secrets management is crucial to protect against account compromise and breaches in cloud environments. As organizations progress through their cloud journey, their approach to secrets management should evolve. For those just starting out, managing static secrets, authenticating and authorizing access, establishing visibility, and automating secrets management are essential first steps. In the standardization stage, automation of legacy applications and deployment of modern secrets management tools become vital. As organizations scale, protecting continuity of secrets, managing keys and certificates, and safeguarding sensitive data are critical. Finally, extending secrets management workflows to hybrid cloud environments is necessary for rapid scaling. By following a 9-step, 18-point checklist, organizations can ensure their secrets management approach matures and evolves to protect against threats and maintain compliance.