Merge PR #4813: ADR-006 Secret Store

docs/architecture/README.md

@@ -26,3 +26,4 @@ Please add a entry below in your Pull Request for an ADR.
 ### ADR Table of Contents
 
 - [ADR-002-Docs-Structure](./adr-002-docs-structure.md)
+- [ADR-006-secret-store-replacement](./adr-006-secret-store-replacement.md)

docs/architecture/adr-006-secret-store-replacement.md

@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+# ADR 006: Replace Keybase with platform specific secret store provided by the Keyring library
+
+## Changelog
+
+- July 29, 2019: Initial draft
+
+## Context
+
+Currently, an SDK application's CLI directory stores key material and metadata in a plain text database in the user’s home directory.  Key material is encrypted by a passphrase, protected by bcrypt hashing algorithm. Metadata (e.g. addresses, public keys, key storage details) is available in plain text. 
+
+This is not desirable for a number of reasons. Perhaps the biggest reason is insufficient security protection of key material and metadata. Leaking the plain text allows an attacker to surveil what keys a given computer controls via a number of techniques, like compromised dependencies without any privilege execution. This could be followed by a more targeted attack on a particular user/computer.
+
+All modern desktop computers OS (Ubuntu, Debian, MacOS, Windows) provide a built-in secret store that is designed to allow applications to store information that is isolated from all other applications and requires passphrase entry to access the data. 
+
+We are seeking solution that provides a common abstraction layer to the many different backends and reasonable fallback for minimal platforms that don’t provide a native secret store.
+
+
+## Decision
+
+We recommend replacing the current Keybase backend based on LevelDB with [Keyring](https://github.com/99designs/keyring) by 99 designs. This application is designed to provide a common abstraction and uniform interface between many secret stores and is used by AWS Vault application by 99-designs application.
+
+This appears to fulfill the requirement of protecting both key material and metadata from rouge software on a user’s machine.
+
+
+
+## Status
+> Proposed
+
+This change is implemented in [Switch secret store to the keyring secret store by poldsam · Pull Request #4754 · cosmos/cosmos-sdk · GitHub](https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/pull/4754)
+
+The audit status on Keyring is currently unknown and may require input from security.
+
+## Consequences
+
+### Positive
+
+Increased safety for users.
+
+### Negative
+
+Users must manually migrate.
+
+Testing against all supported backends is difficult.
+
+Running tests locally on a Mac require numerous repetitive password entries.
+
+### Neutral
+
+{neutral consequences}
+
+## References
+
+- {reference link}
+