Cryptography and keys

Required

• Encrypt data on the wire and on disk

  APS-54

  Encrypt every connection, including those between your own servers. Encrypt stored personal data and backups.

• Renew certificates automatically

  APS-102

  Renew every certificate automatically, and get an alert when one has under 14 days left.

Recommended

• Turn off old encryption

  APS-55

  Allow only TLS 1.2 and 1.3, with ECDHE key exchange and AEAD ciphers. Turn off TLS compression and 0-RTT for requests that change data.

• Use only standard cryptography

  APS-56

  Encrypt and sign only with current algorithms from a maintained library. Never write your own scheme, and never use ECB mode, MD5 or SHA-1 for security.

• Keep encryption keys in a key service

  APS-57

  Encrypt stored data with keys held in a key management service that never hands out the key itself. Rotate each key automatically, and keep the people who manage keys apart from the roles that use them.

• Wrap data keys with a key-encryption key

  APS-103

  Encrypt data with data keys, and store each data key only in wrapped form. A key-encryption key that never leaves the key service or HSM wraps it. Rotate the key-encryption key without decrypting the data.

• Encrypt the most sensitive fields

  APS-58

  Encrypt fields whose leak would cause serious harm, such as ID numbers or health data, in the app before they reach the database.

• Prepare your encryption for quantum computers

  APS-59

  List every use of public-key cryptography, and offer hybrid ML-KEM key exchange on every TLS connection you control. Make each algorithm a setting you can change.

Read this with

• Infrastructure and environments playbook

  Keys in a key service, envelope encryption and certificates that renew themselves.