Which activities are central stages of the key management lifecycle?

• A. Creation, distribution, storage, rotation, revocation, and destruction of cryptographic keys
• B. Encryption, decryption, hashing, signing
• C. User authentication, authorization, auditing, logging
• D. Key backup, archiving, retrieval, disposal

Answer: (A)

Key management revolves around how cryptographic keys come into existence and are handled throughout their life. The essential stages are creating keys, distributing them to the right systems and people, storing them securely, rotating them on a schedule, revoking them when they’re compromised or no longer needed, and destroying them properly at end of life. This full sequence protects confidentiality and integrity because a key must be usable only in the right context and must be unusable after its validity ends. Encryption, decryption, hashing, and signing are operations that use keys, not the lifecycle of managing the keys themselves. Authentication, authorization, auditing, and logging focus on access control and monitoring rather than how keys are created and maintained. Backup, archiving, retrieval, and disposal relate to handling key material, but the central stages that define the lifecycle are the creation, distribution, storage, rotation, revocation, and destruction.