Shuffling Cryptographic Keys in Multi-Cloud KMS
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Establishing trust in Key Management Systems (KMS) operating in multi-cloud environments is challenging due to difficulties in protecting cryptographic keys and managing secure communication channels, especially with outsourcing to cloud service providers, where confidentiality and integrity are at risk.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a shuffle index mechanism within a Key Management System (KMS) that shuffles the distribution of cryptographic keys across multiple cloud service providers, providing obfuscation by randomly moving key locations in response to requests, thereby disrupting attack patterns and maintaining confidentiality and integrity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If cryptographic keys are stored in multiple cloud service providers, then availability and redundancy are improved, but security and trust are worsened due to increased attack surface and difficulty in managing multi-tenant environments
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments key management by distributing cryptographic keys across multiple cloud service providers (CSPs) in a multi-cloud environment. Each CSP stores a portion of the key material, and the system uses a shuffle index to manage the distributed key locations. This segmentation improves availability through redundancy while maintaining security through distribution, as no single CSP holds the complete key material.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements dynamic key location management through the shuffle index mechanism. The index tracks and updates the locations of cryptographic keys across different cloud providers in response to key requests and shuffling operations. This dynamic tracking enables the system to maintain security by obfuscating key locations while ensuring availability by quickly locating keys when needed.
2Ease of operation
If key locations are made transparent for easy access, then ease of operation is improved, but security is worsened due to predictable attack patterns
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of making key locations transparent and predictable, the patent inverts the approach by implementing a shuffle index that actively obfuscates key locations. The index shuffles key distributions across cloud providers, making locations non-transparent and unpredictable to external observers while maintaining internal accessibility through the index's tracking mechanism.
Solution Approach 2:
The shuffle index acts as an intermediary between key requests and actual key storage locations. It mediates the relationship by tracking key locations internally while presenting obfuscated access patterns externally. This intermediary maintains ease of operation for authorized users while preventing predictable attack patterns by hiding the true key locations.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If a shuffle index is implemented to obfuscate key locations, then security is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The shuffle index serves multiple functions simultaneously: it tracks key locations, manages shuffling operations, obfuscates access patterns, and coordinates key retrieval across multiple cloud providers. By consolidating these functions into a single index structure, the patent reduces overall system complexity compared to having separate mechanisms for each function, while still achieving enhanced key confidentiality.
Data Source
AI summary
A method includes receiving, at a key management system from one or more client devices, one or more requests for cryptographic keys stored in respective clouds of a plurality of cloud service providers in a multi-cloud environment, the cryptographic keys being distributed across different ones of the respective clouds of the plurality of cloud service providers in the multi-cloud environment. The method also includes determining a location of a given one of the requested cryptographic keys on one or more of the clouds of the cloud service providers in the multi-cloud environment, retrieving the given cryptographic key from the determined location in the multi-cloud environment, providing the given cryptographic key to a given one of the client devices, and shuffling the distribution of the cryptographic keys across the clouds of the plurality of cloud service providers in the multi-cloud environment.