How to Send Secrets to a New Employee Securely
Onboarding is a credential-heavy moment. Here is how to deliver those first secrets without leaving a trail.
The first day of a new hire is one of the most credential-intensive moments in any company. A single person suddenly needs a temporary account password, VPN details, a Wi-Fi login, access to shared tools, and sometimes a password manager invite. It is tempting to batch all of that into a friendly welcome email. But that email becomes a compact, permanent list of secrets, sitting in two inboxes and every backup, exposed to anyone who later gains access to either account.
The onboarding credential problem
New employees are also, by definition, the people you know the least about from a security standpoint. Their accounts are brand new, they may be setting up devices for the first time, and they are learning your systems. Handing them a durable document full of passwords maximizes the chance that one of those secrets is screenshotted, forwarded, or left in a downloads folder. The goal during onboarding is to deliver each secret cleanly and then have it disappear.
A secure onboarding handoff
One-time links fit onboarding well because they let you deliver credentials through the same welcome email or chat while keeping the secrets themselves out of that permanent record. Each secret is encrypted in the browser, viewable once, and then destroyed.
- Create a separate one-time link for each credential at Burn the Secret, rather than bundling them.
- Set expiries that line up with the new hire's start date and first week.
- For higher-value access, add a passphrase and share it during a call or in person.
- Prefer temporary credentials the employee must reset on first login.
- Confirm each link was retrieved so you know onboarding is on track.
Make it repeatable
If you onboard often, build one-time links into your standard checklist so every new hire is handled the same secure way. Teams with automated provisioning can generate links programmatically with the Burn the Secret API and insert them into onboarding templates. The tool is free, requires no signup to create a link, and encrypts everything client-side with AES-256-GCM, so the server never sees the credentials you hand out.
Welcoming someone new this week? Create a secure link on Burn the Secret.