Certified: The Security+ Prepcast

Software-based encryption can be effective, but for high-assurance environments, hardware-based cryptography adds critical layers of tamper resistance and performance optimization. This episode explores devices and technologies that provide physical and logical security for cryptographic keys, including Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs), Hardware Security Modules (HSMs), and secure enclaves. We explain how TPMs are built into endpoints and used for boot integrity checks, disk encryption support, and secure key storage, while HSMs are dedicated appliances that manage cryptographic operations in data centers or cloud services with strong access control, hardware isolation, and audit logging. Secure enclaves take hardware-based protection a step further by isolating sensitive processes at the processor level, allowing trusted execution even in compromised systems. We also discuss key lifecycle management and the operational overhead that comes with managing hardware-based key infrastructure. While complex and sometimes costly, cryptographic hardware solutions significantly reduce the risk of key theft, unauthorized access, and cryptographic failures, making them indispensable in high-value or regulated environments.