Azure key vault (3): the difference between key and secret

I saw a very vivid example on the Internet to illustrate Key and Secret The difference between ：

Key

Key It's a kind of “ Encryption key ”, Used to encrypt information , There is no need to disclose the private key to the consumer . It's like a black box , Use RSA perhaps EC The algorithm encrypts .

We use RSA Algorithm as an example ：

RSA The algorithm involves a public key and a private key . Everyone can know the public key , It is used to encrypt messages . Mail encrypted with public key can only be decrypted with private key .

for example ：

Suppose you need to store the customer's credit card number , The safe way to keep it in the database is to encrypt it . In software design and business requirements , Obviously you should encrypt it . If the data is not encrypted , Then the attacker can directly obtain the card number , In this way, the information is no longer secure .

If you use Key Vault Medium Key, You can use The credit card number information is sent to Key Vault, It will encrypt the information , And return the encrypted value to the caller .

In high-performance scenarios , You can learn from Key Vault Get the public key , Use it to encrypt information from the application side , The encrypted card number information is stored in the database , Instead of sending data to Key Vault.

The only way to get real data is to send encrypted data to Key Vault, There it will return the decrypted credit card number .

Secret

Secret Provide secure storage of general secrets , Such as token , Password, connection string, etc .

Secret In order to 8 Store and manage secrets in the form of bits and bytes , The largest size is 25kb.

Save to Secret The data in will be encrypted and stored , If you have permission to retrieve data at any time .

Note:

Key and Secret The activation date and expiration date of encrypted data can be set .

Reference link ：

About keys - Azure Key Vault | Microsoft Docshttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/key-vault/keys/about-keysAbout Azure Key Vault secrets - Azure Key Vault | Microsoft Docshttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/key-vault/secrets/about-secrets