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Getting Lost in a Maze of Encryption? Consider a Key Management System

Posted by Marbenz Antonio on September 27, 2022

Android Data Encryption using Jetpack Security | by Trinh Le | Medium

Every data security strategy must include encryption. A key management system (KMS) enables you to convert data into unreadable cyphertext and manage who can access it in clear text, making encryption simpler. This makes data more resistant to unauthorized access, modification, exfiltration, or destruction.

Although encryption is an excellent tool for protecting data, it has limitations. The keys used to encrypt and decrypt the data must be managed. You must also provide users with timely access to the data.

Key management can sometimes become its own operational and security burden. Utilizing native encryption on a storage device usually necessitates managing hundreds of thousands or even millions of data encryption keys that encrypt data at the row or column level. You should also keep in mind that certain laws and security best practices require that encryption keys be routinely rotated, generated, deleted, and secured.

What Are the Benefits of a Key Management System?

KMS solutions assist clients in

  • As a security best practice, keep their data encryption keys off of the encrypted device.
  • Automate their many key life cycles, rotations, and other management operations.
  • By using a master key to encrypt them, they may protect their data encryption keys. The master key can then be securely kept in the application or an additional hardware security module.

Platform-specific or platform-neutral KMS solutions are also options. Businesses having a wide variety of storage media or self-encrypting media (including storage and non-storage devices) may use a platform-neutral solution.

To support endpoints like a disk or tape library, some solutions employ interoperability protocols (for instance, the Key Management Interoperability Protocol). The same outcome may alternatively be achieved by using different protocols or application programming interfaces.

KMS Helps Keep Encrypted Data Available

Although KMS solutions are crucial for storing and protecting data encryption keys, you must weigh the security they offer against the accessibility of encrypted data. Without the encryption key, encrypted data cannot be decoded. If the application serving the keys is unavailable or disconnected, keys that are stored in a KMS won’t function.

It is important to consider the solution’s possibilities for high availability and redundancy when developing an encryption key management strategy and selecting which providers to work with. You need a solution that is both dependable and secure.

 


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