Part 1: General - Computer Security Resource Center - National ...

Key Management
Policy
Key Management
Practices Statement
March, 2007
The Key Management Policy is a high-level statement of
organizational key management policies that identifies high-level
structure, responsibilities, governing standards and recommendations,
organizational dependencies and other relationships, and security
policies.
The Key Management Practices Statement is a document or set of
documentation that describes in detail the organizational structure,
responsible roles, and organization rules for the functions identified in
the Key Management Policy.
Key pair A public key and its corresponding private key; a key pair is used with
a public key algorithm.
Key recovery A function in the lifecycle of keying material; mechanisms and
processes that allow authorized entities to retrieve keying material from
key backup or archive.
Key registration A function in the lifecycle of keying material; the process of officially
recording the keying material by a registration authority.
Key revocation A function in the lifecycle of keying material; a process whereby a
notice is made available to affected entities that keying material should
be removed from operational use prior to the end of the established
cryptoperiod of that keying material.
Key transport A key establishment procedure whereby one party (the sender) selects
and encrypts the keying material and then distributes the material to
another party (the receiver).
When used in conjunction with a public key (asymmetric) algorithm,
the keying material is encrypted using the public key of the receiver
and subsequently decrypted using the private key of the receiver. When
used in conjunction with a symmetric algorithm, the keying material is
wrapped with a key encrypting key shared by the two parties.
Key update A function performed on a cryptographic key in order to compute a
new but related key.
Key usage period For a symmetric key, either the originator usage period or the recipient
usage period.
Key wrapping A method of encrypting keys (along with associated integrity
information) that provides both confidentiality and integrity protection
using a symmetric key.
Key wrapping key A symmetric key encrypting key.
Keying material The data (e.g., keys and IVs) necessary to establish and maintain
cryptographic keying relationships.
Label Information associated with a key that identifies the key’s parameters
attributes or intended use.
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