CERTIFYING DEVICE AND CERTIFYING METHOD

摘要

PURPOSE: To protect the cipher function and the safety of a stored or distributed key by permitting a cipher instruction storage device to execute a key management function with a cipher key, permitting a control vector inspection means to judge that the key management function is permitted, and permitting a cipher processing means to execute the requested key management function with the cipher key. CONSTITUTION: When a cipher instruction storage mechanism 10 receives a cipher service request for obtaining the restoration of the cipher key from a cipher key storage mechanism 22, the control vector inspection mechanism 14 outputs a permission signal showing that the function for restoring the cipher key is permitted to the cipher processing mechanism 16 through a line 20. Then, the cipher processing mechanism 16 receives the cipher key ciphered from the cipher key storage mechanism 22 and operates not to cipher the cipher key ciphered under a stored key being AND with a related control vector and a master key stored in a master key storage mechanism 18. Thus, practical and highly flexible key management technology can be obtained.