Hardware Security Modules (HSM) are tamper-proof physical devices that safeguard secret digital keys and help in strengthening asymmetric/symmetric key cryptography. They’re used in achieving high level of data security and trust when implementing PKI or SSH. HSMs provide an additional layer of security by storing the decryption keys separate from the encrypted data. This way, even when a breach occurs, data that’s encrypted doesn’t get exposed.
HSMs usually come as a plug-in device that can connect directly to a computer or a network server. HSM devices also securely back up those keys that they handle outside the HSM. HSMs are also used by Certificate Authorities (CAs) to generate, store, and handle asymmetric key pairs,
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