Key management is essential in cryptography to control access and verify keys. Keys are the weakest link, requiring proper management to prevent theft or forgery. A key management system involves limiting access, random updates, and encrypted storage. Human error and departmental conflicts can complicate implementation.
Key management is the process of controlling access and verifying keys in a cryptographic system. In cryptography, information is encoded using a cipher. This cipher mixes information in a very specific way that allows anyone with the correct key to decrypt the data back to its original form. Proper key management is essential to keeping keys where they need to be and verifying that the keys are correct before decrypting the information.
Keys are the weakest link in a cryptographic system. It is possible to create code so ambiguous or complex that it will never be broken, but if no one can decode it, all encoded information is lost. For the code to work properly, it needs a key. Any place where the code will need to be broken requires a copy of it, and each of these places is a place where the key can be abused.
To prevent key theft or forgery, encryption uses two methods; key programming and management. A key schedule is the internal appearance of a key in encrypted material. These keys often interact with external ones to verify the authenticity of the key and generate subkeys to access the encrypted data within the encrypted data. Since key schedules generally require a genuine key to work, they are often viewed as low-risk keys.
At a basic level, key management is about securing access to the key when it is inactive and when it is in use. In a common system, the keys are stored in a secure location and offline. Before computers, this was often a restricted access area, now it is typically a non-networked computer system. When the key is needed, the key server will connect to the network, enter the correct information, and disconnect. It is only during the actual use of the key that the systems will connect. This limits the amount of time a potential thief can spend logging into your system.
A key management system extends beyond information. Proper management involves limiting personal access to key storage locations, random key updates, and encrypted key storage servers. A true management system involves every aspect of network access and personnel management. As a result, large-scale key management systems are difficult to implement and expensive to control.
This problem is often compounded by human error. Inadequately trained workers will underestimate restricting access to keys and leave avenues open for theft. Departmental oversight will often have conflicts, as key management potentially falls within the purview of information technology, accounting, and internal security departments. This will cause the system to have too many managers, creating policy conflicts, or too few, as each department feels the other has everything under control.
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