Key Management (PKI)

Key management is the lifecycle administration of cryptographic keys: generation, distribution, storage, rotation, revocation, and destruction. In shipping it underpins public-key infrastructure for electronic bills of lading and the SSAS, where the integrity of an X.509 certificate depends on the private key never being exposed. Practices follow NIST SP 800-57 (recommendations for key management), with private keys typically held in a hardware security module. Weak key management, not the cipher, is the usual point of failure in maritime PKI deployments.