Encryption is an essential part of any data security strategy. A key management system (KMS) can make encryption easier by enabling you to transform data to indecipherable cyphertext and control who can access it in clear text. That helps keep data secure from unauthorized use, alteration, exfiltration or deletion.
While encryption is a great tool for keeping data safe, it also comes with drawbacks. You have to manage the keys used to encrypt and decrypt the data. At the same time, you must make the data available in a timely fashion for users.
In addition, key management can become an operational and security burden of its own. Using a storage device’s native encryption often means that you will also need to manage thousands or hundreds of thousands of data encryption keys that encrypt data at the row or column level. You also need to take into account that certain regulations and security hygiene require that someone regularly rotates, creates, deletes and secures encryption keys.
What Are the Benefits of a Key Management System?
KMS solutions help customers:
Store their data encryption keys outside of the encrypted device — a security best practice
Automate the life cycle, rotation and other management workflows of their many keys
Secure their data encryption keys by encrypting them with a master key. From there, you can safely store that master key in the application itself or in an external hardware security module.
KMS solutions can be platform-specific or platform agnostic. Enterprises with varied storage media or a wide range of self-encrypting media (including both storage and non-storage devices) may opt for a solution that is platform agnostic.
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