Cryptographic Key Distribution and Management
Cryptographic key distribution and management is one of the most important steps in the process of securing data by utilizing encryption. Problems related to cryptographic key distribution and management are hard to solve and easy to exploit, and therefore, they are appealing to the attacker. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the topics of cryptographic key distribution and management, especially with regards to asymmetric keys. The chapter describes how these topics are handled today, what the real-world problems related to cryptographic key distribution and management are, and presents existing solutions as well as future directions in their solving. The authors present the cryptographic key management and distribution problems from a multidisciplinary point of view by looking at its economic, psychological, usability, and technological aspects.