High-confidence secret in ECS task definition environment variable

Severity: Critical
Service: Secrets exposure
Check ID: SECRETS_ECS_TASKDEF_HIGH

What this check finds

An ECS task definition container environment variable matches a high-confidence credential pattern. Task definitions are versioned and stored in plaintext — any IAM principal with ecs:DescribeTaskDefinition can read all historical revisions.

Passing looks like: No secrets in ECS task definitions.

How to fix it

Replace the environment entry with a secrets entry in the container definition, pointing to Secrets Manager or SSM SecureString. Register a new task definition revision and deregister old revisions containing the secret.

Compliance controls it is evidence for

A failing result counts against these controls in KloudLytics; a passing one is evidence towards them. How compliance mapping works

Compliance controls mapped to High-confidence secret in ECS task definition environment variable
Framework	Controls
NIST SP 800-53 Rev5 (Moderate)	IA-5 Authenticator Management
NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0	PR.AA-01 Identities and credentials are managed
ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A	A.5.17 Authentication information

Checked on every scan

KloudLytics runs this check each time it scans a connected AWS account, through a read-only role, and lists every affected resource with its region. On Pro and Business a fix is written for the specific resource rather than the general case above. The exact access it needs

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