ABSTRACT
Cryptography is an essential technology to secure cloud operations. e use of cryptography implies the use of cryptographic keys. While cryptographic keys help to protect the security of data, the keys themselves
also need to be protected to ensure they are not released to or modi ed by unauthorized entities and are kept accessible to authorized entities to enable access to the data. Cryptographic keys have to be managed throughout their lifecycle to protect their con dentiality, integrity, and availability-essentially, they are as valuable as the collective value of all of the data they protect. us, sound techniques for managing the lifecycle of these keys are critical to the security of the overall cryptographic infrastructure. In this chapter, we will describe the foundational concepts in cryptographic key management, the design choices for key management systems, the challenges of key management in cloud systems, and strategies for implementing e ective key management within the cloud.
