Back to glossary

Master/Session

In cryptography, Master/Session is a key management scheme in which a pre-shared Key Encrypting Key is used to encrypt a randomly generated and insecurely communicated Working Key. The Working Key is then used for encrypting the data to be exchanged. Its advantage is simplicity, but it suffers the disadvantage of having to communicate the pre-shared Key Exchange Key, which can be difficult to update in the event of compromise.