Cryptographic Key

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Cryptographic Key 1) Elaine Barker, NIST, Recommendation for Key Management: Part 1 - General, NIST Special Publication 800-57 Part 1, Revision 5, May 2020, Accessed 18 January 2022, https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.800-57pt1r5.pdf is a parameter used in conjunction with a Cryptographic Algorithm that determines its operation in such a way that an entity with knowledge of the key can reproduce, reverse or verify the operation while an entity without knowledge of the Cryptographic Key, cannot.

Examples include:

The transformation of Plaintext data into cyphertext data,The transformation of cyphertext data into Plaintext data,The computation of a Digital Signature from data,The verification of a Digital Signature on data,The computation of an Authentication Code from data,The verification of an Authentication Code from data and a received or retrieved authentication code, andThe computation of a shared secret that is used to derive keying material.Source: https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.800-57pt1r5.pdf