Key backup is an important part of the cryptographic keylifecycle. (a) Why is it

Question

Key backup is an important part of the cryptographic keylifecycle. (a) Why is it important to back up cryptographic keys? (b) In what ways might backup of cryptographic keys differ from backup of 8. more general data on a computer system? (c) As system administrator of a small organisation deploying symmetric cryptography for protection of all traffic on the local intranet, suggest what techniques and procedures you will use for the backup (and subsequent management of backed-up) cryptographic keys.

Explanation / Answer

a)

For protecting encryption keys from unauthorized access, there are various complex algorithms being run to protect and back up of the encryption key.

If there is a situation occurred when an encrypted data is beenlost due to system crash or not been recovered from cipher text to the plain text and the corresponding decryption key is lost or in another situation if the verification key is been some how lost to manage a digital signature of data then it is difficult to revert back. That is why there needs to back up encryption key and to archive the key.

b)

The ways might backup of cryptographic keys differ from backup of more general data on a computer system:

To maintain a secrecy of a backup key must be strong enough as to maintain and generate the secret key having been sustained in the same levelof system and also in environmental system control. Always try to maintain the highest level of environmental system control for back up key. In case of key archive the cryptographic keys are still needed for a certain period of time duringthe expiry and lost as no longer required.

So it is complex to maintain the secret keys but still cost and time effective where as to maintain whole lot of data of the organization to backup or retrieve in another server in a local or remote machine it will be most costly and time baring, there is high chance to loss of data though the company follows cloud based data handling.

c)

A small organization deploying symmetric cryptography for protection of all traffic on the local intranet follows some techniques and procedures for the backup (and subsequent management of backed-up) cryptographic keys:

In case of Symmetric key algorithms where a single key is required to provide an authorized and secure communications maintaining all the confidentiality, integrity and authentication, there must have a private key in the cryptographic algorithm to encrypt and decrypt key.

According to the specified scenario , the provided private key is required for encryption which will not required any more for decryption purpose. There might have a chance of problems where it is impossible to recover back any encrypted data using this sort of encrypted private key and also to disclose the private key.

So here need to fix the key for large data blocks by using key wrapping algorithm for particular data block with an alternative specified key for subsequent backed up management. Here also implant key separation algorithm deploying such symmetric cryptography within local intranet.

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