Use the Vault transit engine to re-encrypt (rewrap) ciphertext after a key rotation without decrypting to plaintext

domain: vaultproject.io · 6 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗

Steps

  1. Enable transit and create a named encryption key: 'vault secrets enable transit' then 'vault write -f transit/keys/mykey'
  2. Encrypt data to produce a versioned ciphertext: 'vault write transit/encrypt/mykey plaintext=$(base64 <<< "my secret data")'
  3. Rotate the key to create a new key version: 'vault write -f transit/keys/mykey/rotate'
  4. Rewrap existing ciphertext with the new key version without ever exposing plaintext: 'vault write transit/rewrap/mykey ciphertext=<VAULT_CIPHERTEXT_TOKEN>'
  5. Update the stored ciphertext in your database with the rewrapped value returned by the rewrap endpoint
  6. Set a minimum decryption version to prevent use of old ciphertext: 'vault write transit/keys/mykey/config min_decryption_version=2'

Known gotchas

Related routes

Use HashiCorp Vault transit engine to encrypt and decrypt application data without exposing keys
developer.hashicorp.com/vault/docs/secrets/transit · 6 steps · unrated
Encrypt and rewrap secrets using HashiCorp Vault Transit secrets engine
developer.hashicorp.com · 6 steps · unrated
Configure Vault transit engine convergent encryption with a derived key and verify deterministic output
vaultproject.io · 6 steps · unrated

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