Password storage

What is the best way to store passwords that should be kept secret.  For example, we have a password for a service account that we don't want others to see.  If we store in a project property, even as a password, it is stored in plain text in the properties file.  If we store it in the database as a code value pair and pull it in the password is stored as plain text in logs, and in the debugger.  If we use global data it is shown in plain text.  We can't seem to find a good option for passwords.