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Key Management Systems (KMS)

A key management system (KMS) handles the creation, storage, distribution, and management of keys — whether physical, credential-based, or cryptographic. Understanding KMS concepts is foundational to endpoint security and broader IT infrastructure protection.

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About this video

A key management system (KMS) is a structured approach to creating, storing, distributing, and managing keys throughout an organization. The concept extends well beyond digital environments — a KMS can be as straightforward as a physical lockbox used to store keys to equipment cabinets, or as sophisticated as software-driven systems managing enterprise cryptographic assets. What defines a KMS is not the technology behind it, but the function it serves: maintaining controlled, organized access to keys of any kind. Keys themselves come in several forms. Physical keys provide access to rooms, cabinets, and hardware. Credential-based keys, such as usernames and passwords, authenticate users into systems and applications. Cryptographic keys — including public keys, private keys, and pre-shared keys — underpin encryption, secure communications, and identity verification across modern IT infrastructure. Effective key management ensures these assets are properly controlled, reducing the risk of unauthorized access or data exposure. One notable hardware-based implementation of key management is the Trusted Platform Module (TPM), a dedicated security chip integrated into many laptops and desktop computers. The TPM provides built-in capabilities for generating, storing, and managing cryptographic keys at the hardware level, making it a core component of endpoint security architectures. Understanding how TPMs function within a broader KMS framework is essential knowledge for IT professionals working in security-focused roles.

What you'll learn

What's covered

Key Management Systems

Key terms

Key Exchange
A method used to securely share cryptographic keys between parties over an insecure channel.
Cryptography
The practice of securing information by transforming it into an unreadable format using mathematical algorithms.
Public Key
A cryptographic key that can be shared openly and is used to encrypt data or verify digital signatures.
Private Key
A secret cryptographic key used in asymmetric encryption to decrypt data or create digital signatures.
Key Management Service
KMS
Key Management Service is a centralized system for generating, distributing, storing, rotating, and retiring cryptographic keys, ensuring that encryption keys are handled securely throughout their lifecycle.
Trusted Platform Module
TPM
Trusted Platform Module is a dedicated hardware security chip embedded in devices that provides a hardware root of trust for secure boot, cryptographic key storage, and platform attestation, protecting sensitive keys from software-level compromise.

Topics

Key Management Cryptography Trusted Platform Module Endpoint Security Encryption Keys Hardware Security

Transcript

What a Key Management System Is

We're going to be getting into some technologies that are a key management system, or at least a component of it is a KMS, a key management system. Now, key management systems are not specific to endpoint security. In fact, they might not even be associated with technology at all. There are cases where it is not even a technology thing, it's just an access thing. It's a key management system, and it's just as it sounds: it manages keys.

A key management system is a system for creating, storing, distributing and/or managing keys. I like to think of it as when you pull up for a valet and they take your car keys. What they do is they go and park your car, and then they have a system for managing those keys. That's kind of what we're talking about here: there are systems that are used to manage different keys, and it doesn't have to be digital keys, it could be any kind of keys.

One of the things that is an example of this is that in the places I worked, all of the equipment was stored in these lockers, and we would lock those lockers up with keys. Well, where are we going to put those keys? We would have a lock box that we put all of the keys in. That was our key management system. So we had a key management system to manage those keys that unlocked all these cabinets that gave us access to all this IT equipment.

Physical and Virtual Keys

So these keys could be either physical or virtual. An example might be a key to a door, where you had gained some sort of physical access to something. Or it could be credentials into a system, like a username and password to gain access into a system. Or it could be cryptographic keys, things like public keys and private keys, or maybe some sort of pre-shared keys. Keys that allow us to encrypt data, keys that allow us to be able to authenticate someone. So there are different types of keys that are out there.

The Trusted Platform Module

One of the technologies we're going to get into is a trusted platform module. This is a separate chip that you find on a lot of hardware out there, like laptops and desktops. As part of it, it has a built-in key management system where it can assign keys, it can do encryption and store keys. There are a lot of different ways that we can use this TPM as part of a key management system.

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