The correct answer is Sensitive credentials used for authentication or authorization.

Sensitive credentials are items like passwords, API keys, OAuth tokens, private keys and certificates that prove identity or grant access. These values must be stored, rotated and audited carefully because possession of them allows authentication or authorization to systems and data. Secret management solutions exist specifically to protect these credentials and to control who and what can retrieve them.

Encrypted data files that store sensitive content are protected data rather than authentication credentials. Encryption secures the contents but the files themselves are not the secret authentication values unless they specifically contain credentials.

Cloud Identity and Access Management roles are permission or identity constructs that define allowed actions. Roles are not secret values and they are designed to be assigned and audited instead of being held confidentially like credentials.

Unique identifiers assigned to software components are labels used for identification or tracking. They do not by themselves grant access and they are not considered secrets even though some identifiers may need protection for privacy reasons.

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