Disaster recovery

ZeroKMS is designed to protect your encrypted data with robust disaster recovery capabilities. Your encrypted data remains recoverable even in the event of a complete service disruption.

Separation of keys and data

ZeroKMS uses a fundamental architectural principle: your encrypted data stays in your database. We only manage the key material needed to decrypt that data. This separation means:

• Your encrypted data is never stored in CipherStash infrastructure
• A CipherStash outage affects key access, not your data
• Recovery doesn't require migrating or restoring potentially terabytes of encrypted data

Key recovery process

ZeroKMS uses a hierarchical key structure that enables you to regenerate data keys on-demand without storing every individual key. This means:

• Key material is cryptographically reproducible
• No database of individual data keys needs to be restored
• Recovery time is measured in hours, not days

Zero data loss

In a disaster recovery scenario, no data loss occurs. All encrypted data remains intact and fully recoverable. The key material used to generate your data keys is preserved and can be regenerated.

Fast recovery in case of regional failure

In the event of a complete regional failure, CipherStash can restore ZeroKMS service within a few hours. During this time:

• Your encrypted data remains safely stored in your database
• Applications cannot decrypt existing data or encrypt new data
• Once service is restored, all operations resume normally

What happens during a ZeroKMS outage?

Data access during an outage

During a CipherStash outage, can we access our encrypted data?

No. While ZeroKMS is unavailable, your applications cannot perform cryptographic operations (encrypt or decrypt). This is an intentional security design — cryptographic operations require active key management infrastructure.

Is our encrypted data at risk?

No. Your encrypted data remains safely stored in your own database. A CipherStash outage does not expose, corrupt, or delete your data.

After recovery

Once service is restored to a new region or infrastructure:

1. Your applications reconnect to the restored ZeroKMS endpoint
2. Key material is cryptographically regenerated
3. All encrypted data becomes accessible again
4. No data migration or reindexing is required

Architecture benefits

Compared to traditional approaches

Many encryption and data protection solutions require storing both encrypted data and keys together in a "vault." During disaster recovery, these solutions must restore the entire vault — potentially terabytes of data, taking hours or days.

ZeroKMS is different:

• Only lightweight key material (megabytes) needs to be restored
• Your encrypted data never moves — it stays in your database
• Recovery is based on cryptographic regeneration, not data restoration

Security during recovery

• Encrypted data in your database remains protected
• Key material is restored through cryptographically secure processes
• Access controls and audit logging resume immediately when service is restored
• No temporary "recovery windows" that might expose data

Questions?

If you have specific disaster recovery requirements or need to discuss your resilience planning, please contact support@cipherstash.com.