As businesses expand, so does their exposure to various risks, largely due to the increasing amount of code, systems, and users that interact within distributed environments. Beyond the standard security aspects, there is now a growing responsibility for teams to manage sensitive information in all its variants. This includes handling secrets, personally identifiable information (PII), and addressing non-inclusive language (NIL) that could affect brand image and employee retention. These challenges are especially significant in sectors with stringent security, compliance, and governance protocols.
While many teams find cloud-based secret scanning effective, it may not be suitable for organizations that require full control over their data. Such organizations demand:
- Detailed control over the execution and location of scans.
- Assurance that sensitive content or secrets remain within their environment.
- Centralized visibility that does not involve data exposure.
HCP Vault Radar Agent and Hybrid Scanning
The HCP Vault Radar agent caters to these needs by enabling hybrid scanning of source code and collaboration tools directly within your environment. This solution assists teams in detecting and addressing secrets, PII, and non-inclusive language, thereby ensuring compliance and maintaining rapid progress without compromising on security. By integrating scanning capabilities into your private cloud or on-premises setup, it offers:
- Local scanning for code repositories and collaboration tools.
- Command Line Interface (CLI) integration that works seamlessly with your existing CI/CD pipelines and secret management systems like Vault.
- Metadata reporting back to HCP for risk visibility and correlation, without exposing sensitive content.
Whether your operations are fully on-premises, in the cloud, or across a hybrid environment, the agent provides consistent scanning, comprehensive visibility, and complete control over the analysis of data.
How Vault Radar Agent Works Inside Your Environment
The Vault Radar agent functions in a hybrid model, operating within your trust boundary, and securely connecting to HCP Vault Radar to conduct the standard scanning workflow. Once deployed, the agent acts as a local worker node that securely executes scans as orchestrated by HCP Vault Radar. Upon initialization, the agent will:
- Connect to HCP Vault Radar.
- Poll HCP for available scanning tasks.
- Execute scans using the same logic as the Radar CLI’s scan repo command.
- Upload results and heartbeats to HCP, providing centralized visibility.
Accelerate Time to Value with Automated Discovery
Vault Radar agent supports the automatic discovery of data sources on platforms like GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Azure DevOps. This feature allows users to onboard multiple repositories simultaneously (up to 5,000). Once these repositories are connected, they undergo continuous scanning for potential secret exposures, with capabilities for scheduled rescans and automatic detection of new commits.
Parallel Scanning with End-to-End Coverage
Each registered agent operates multiple dedicated workers to support various scan types at the same time, optimized for different use cases, including:
- Commit diff scans to identify newly introduced secrets in near real-time.
- Pull request scans to secure code in transit and prevent the sharing of secrets during collaborative workflows.
- Full repository scans across all branches and historical commits to uncover long-standing risks that may have been overlooked.
By conducting these scans in parallel, the agent provides rapid feedback to developers during their development cycles while giving security teams the confidence to detect and address unmanaged secrets.
Built-in Context and Correlation
The Vault Radar agent provides secure, contextual scanning that extends beyond mere detection. Each scanning task, such as a repository scan or webhook registration, is securely scheduled, authenticated, and executed by the agent within your environment. When a new job is identified, the agent:
- Authenticates itself using a local token.
- Executes the scan against the target data source.
- Returns results, checkpoint data, and discovered risks back to HCP.
The agent then enhances findings through automated correlation, identifying unmanaged secrets and those already secured in a secrets manager, such as Vault. This built-in context allows security teams to understand not just what was leaked but the impact of the exposure. By correlating discoveries to known secrets, Vault Radar supports smarter decision-making, enabling teams to:
- Prioritize unmanaged, high-risk secrets.
- Understand the origin of secrets.
- Avoid unnecessary disruption when mitigating leaks.
Transparent Reporting Throughout the Lifecycle
Vault Radar agent offers visibility at every step of the scanning process. As scans are executed, the agent reports progress incrementally, uploading partial results to HCP that include scan checkpoints and any newly discovered risks. These updates support future incremental scans while keeping your teams informed in real-time.
When a scan is completed, the agent provides a comprehensive report that includes scan results, metadata, and job status. With built-in accountability at each stage, the Vault Radar agent enables teams to maintain real-time insight, audit readiness, and operational efficiency.
Enterprise-Grade Secret Scanning in Your Environment
The Vault Radar agent brings the capabilities of Vault Radar directly into your environment, allowing you to detect, prioritize, and respond to secret exposures without transferring sensitive data to the cloud. It combines the flexibility of local scanning with the intelligence of centralized risk correlation, offering full visibility across your developer tools.
Whether you are navigating strict regulatory requirements or simply prioritizing tighter control over your security workflows, the Vault Radar agent provides a scalable, secure, and context-aware approach to secret detection.
For those interested in exploring the functionalities of the Vault Radar agent further, there is an opportunity to join an upcoming webinar to learn more. Alternatively, you can begin a 30-day trial to experience firsthand how you can take control of secret scanning within your own environment.
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