Key Management

Key management consists of all provisions applied to cryptographic protocol. These provisions may be related to key creation, storage, exchange, use, security and replacement. Key management is very essential to the secure use of any cryptographic system. It is often considered to be the most difficult part of cryptography. Key management includes system policies, thorough user training, organizational interaction and at times, coordination amongst end users. Many of these concerns are not all related to cryptographic engineering and are considered brief though they are of substantial importance. These conflicts often occur between members of upper management and the cryptographers that applied the algorithm. While there are a few similarities, there is a great distinction between key management and key scheduling. Key management involves keys passed between systems or users, while key scheduling is usually done to apply the specific handling of key-related material within the operation of a particular cipher.