April 7-10, 2025 | Toronto, Canada

KMIP vs PKCS#11 Revisited—Still No Contest! (S30a)

23 Sep 2020
9:00-9:30

KMIP vs PKCS#11 Revisited—Still No Contest! (S30a)

With the lines between enterprise key managers and hardware security modules being continually blurred or at worst, not well understood, it is easy to see two of our leading industry standards (KMIP & PKCS#11) as being competitive. At ICMC18 a question raised at the HSM panel asking simply “Which one will win?” At ICMC19 the two standards were compared and contrasted, concluding with “Both! There is no contest!” This year we look at the latest developments across both standards as they have both progressed significantly in the last 12 months, releasing new versions and bringing greater capability along with it. In more detail, these two OASIS standards are designed to be complimentary. This session will explore the latest content of both standards, as well as diving into the way in which implementations supporting each standard are deployed within the enterprise to perform specific and yet complementary roles, citing some specific deployment examples. Delivered by the co-chair of both the OASIS PKCS#11 and Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP) Technical Committees, this discussion will continue on from previous years’ content, providing insights into how complimentary standards can be used to deliver better outcomes in the encryption and cryptography arenas.