Data Protection & Encryption
Master data protection strategies — encryption at rest and in transit, key management, secrets management, and data classification.
45 min•By Priygop Team•Last updated: Feb 2026
Encryption Strategies
- Encryption at Rest: All stored data must be encrypted — use AES-256 for databases, object storage, and disk volumes. Enable by default, not as an afterthought
- Encryption in Transit: Use TLS 1.3 for all network communication — between services, between user and server, and between cloud services
- Key Management: Use cloud KMS (AWS KMS, Azure Key Vault, GCP Cloud KMS) — never store encryption keys alongside encrypted data
- Customer-Managed Keys (CMK): For sensitive data, use your own keys stored in KMS — provides more control and auditability than provider-managed keys
- Envelope Encryption: Encrypt data with a data key, encrypt the data key with a master key — efficient for large datasets and enables key rotation without re-encrypting data
- Database Encryption: Enable Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) for RDS/SQL databases — encrypts at the storage level without application changes
Secrets Management
- Never hardcode secrets: No API keys, passwords, or tokens in source code — use environment variables or secrets managers
- Secrets Managers: AWS Secrets Manager, HashiCorp Vault, Azure Key Vault — centralized, audited, automatically rotated secret storage
- Secret Rotation: Automatically rotate database passwords, API keys, and certificates — reduces blast radius of compromised credentials
- Kubernetes Secrets: Use external secret operators (External Secrets, Sealed Secrets) — pull secrets from Vault/AWS at runtime, not stored in YAML files
- CI/CD Secrets: Use GitHub Secrets, GitLab CI Variables — masked in logs, granted per-environment, rotatable without code changes