Encryption and Key Management August 26, 2015
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Storage Networking Industry Association Technical White Paper Storage Security: Encryption and Key Management August 26, 2015 Abstract: The ISO/IEC 27040:2015 (Information technology - Security techniques - Storage security) standard provides detailed technical guidance on controls and methods for securing storage systems and ecosystems. This whitepaper describes the recommended guidelines for data confidentiality, including data in motion encryption, data at rest encryption, and key management. The practical implications of these recommendations are discussed from both an end user and storage vendor perspective. USAGE The SNIA hereby grants permission for individuals to use this document for personal use only, and for corporations and other business entities to use this document for internal use only (including internal copying, distribution, and display) provided that: 1. 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Encryption and Key Management SNIA Technical White Paper 3 August 26, 2015 Revision History Revision Date Sections Originator: Comments All Walt Hubis Initial Draft V0.1 8/25/2014 All Walt Hubis Review Draft V0.2 3/6/2014 All Walt Hubis 1st Ballot Draft V0.3 5/5/2015 All Walt Hubis 2nd Ballot Draft V0.5 7/10/2015 All Eric Hibbard Post-Ballot Draft V07 8/15/2015 All Eric Hibbard 3rd Ballot Draft V08 8/18/2015 All Eric Hibbard Final V09 8/26/2015 Suggestion for changes or modifications to this document should be submitted at http://www.snia.org/feedback/. Foreword This is one of a series of whitepapers prepared by the SNIA Security Technical Working Group to provide an introduction and overview of important topics in ISO/IEC 27040:2015, Information technology – Security techniques – Storage security. While not intended to replace the standard, they provide additional explanations and guidance beyond that found in the actual standard. Encryption and Key Management SNIA Technical White Paper 4 August 26, 2015 Executive Summary Increasingly, cryptographic mechanisms such as encryption and key management are being used in storage ecosystems to protect data transferred to (data in motion) and stored (data at rest) in data storage systems. To effectively use these technologies, organizations need to understand the benefits, issues, implications, and the limitations, especially when sensitive and high-value data are involved. This storage security whitepaper leverages the guidance in the ISO/IEC 27040 standard and provides value added information on encryption and key management as it relates to storage systems and ecosystems. 1 Introduction The application of encryption to a storage ecosystem can afford very different protections depending on how and where it is integrated. For example, encrypting files or shares within a Network Attached Storage (NAS) file system can offer user-specific protections that are not possible with encryption at the drive level. Thus, it is important to understand the reasons encryption should be considered (that is, which threats are to be mitigated). ISO/IEC 27040:2015 Information technology - Security techniques - Storage security provides detailed technical guidance on controls and methods for securing storage systems and ecosystems (see Appendix A for an overview). While the coverage of this standard is quite broad it does lack specific guidance for certain topics that could enhance the protections. This is partially true with regard to encryption and key management. This whitepaper, which is one in a series from SNIA that addresses various elements of storage security, is intended to leverage the guidance in the ISO/IEC 27040 standard and build upon it with a specific focus on encryption and key management. In addition, it incorporates industry insights with certain security features and capabilities. The whitepaper provides background information on encryption and key management, summarizes the security options, explores the relevant ISO/IEC 27040 guidance, and offers addition information that can help in securing storage. 1.1 Confidentiality and Secrecy Confidentiality is the property whereby information is available to authorized parties on demand but never available to unauthorized parties. Secrecy is a term that is often used synonymously with confidentiality. Cryptographic mechanisms are one of the strongest ways to provide confidentiality and other security services in applications and protocols for data storage. 1 Confidentiality is often achieved using encryption to render the information unintelligible to unauthorized entities. The information is rendered intelligible to authorized entities by 1 A general introduction to cryptography is Cryptography Decrypted by H. X. Mel and Doris Baker (Addison- Wesley:2000 ISBN 978-0201616477) Encryption and Key Management SNIA Technical White Paper 5 August 26, 2015 decryption. In order for encryption to provide confidentiality, the cryptographic algorithm and mode of operation must be designed and implemented so that an unauthorized party cannot determine the secret or private keys2 associated with the encryption or be able to derive the plaintext directly without determining any keys. 1.2 Encryption Overview The primary purpose of encryption (or encipherment) systems is to protect the confidentiality of stored or transmitted data. Encryption algorithms achieve this by transforming plaintext into ciphertext, from which it is computationally infeasible to find any information about the content of the plaintext unless the decryption key is also known. However, the length of the plaintext will generally not be concealed by encryption, since the length of the ciphertext will typically be the same as, or a little larger than, the length of the corresponding plaintext. It is important to note that encryption may not always, by itself, protect the integrity or the origin of data. In many cases it is possible, without knowledge of the key, to modify encrypted text with predictable effects on the recovered plaintext. In order to ensure integrity and origin of data it is often necessary to use additional techniques. There are three basic classes of cryptographic algorithms: hash algorithms, symmetric key algorithms and asymmetric key algorithms. The classes are defined by the number of cryptographic keys that are used in conjunction with the algorithm. 1.3 Key