From the course: CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) Cert Prep: 1 General Security Concepts
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Hardware security modules
From the course: CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) Cert Prep: 1 General Security Concepts
Hardware security modules
Cryptography requires a great deal of mathematical computation and, therefore, is fairly slow. Engineers often make cryptography more efficient by building special purpose computer hardware that's designed specifically for encryption and decryption. Hardware security modules or HSMs are special-purpose computing devices that manage encryption keys and also perform cryptographic operations in a highly efficient manner. HSMs are expensive to purchase and operate, but they provide an extremely high level of security when configured properly. One of their core benefits is that they can create and manage encryption keys without exposing them to a single human being, dramatically reducing likelihood that those keys will be compromised. Cloud service providers often use HSMs internally for the management of their own encryption keys, and they also offer HSM services to their customers as a secure method for managing customer keys without exposing them to the provider. U.S. federal government…
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