infospace-bench/infospaces/patterns-of-it-securita-architecture/artifacts/entities/pattern-key-per-tenant.md

Pattern: Key-per-Tenant

Status: seed Readiness target: RL4 regulated production Primary owners: NetKingdom, Railiance platform, product repos Genesis family: Secrets and cryptography

Problem

Shared encryption keys make tenant data separation and incident containment weaker than the tenant model may require.

Context

Use this pattern for sensitive tenant data, regulated tenants, object storage, databases, backups, and export/deletion workflows.

Forces

• Per-tenant keys strengthen isolation and revocation.
• Key lifecycle is operationally complex.
• Applications need safe key selection without tenant spoofing.
• Backups and derived data need the same key boundary.

Solution

Assign tenant-specific encryption keys or key hierarchy roots where risk requires it. Bind key use to trusted tenant context, policy, audit, and rotation procedures.

Verification

• Tenant data is encrypted with the correct tenant key or key hierarchy.
• Cross-tenant key use is denied.
• Rotation and revocation are tested.
• Backups and exports preserve tenant key boundaries.

Related Patterns

• Tenant Data Partitioning.
• Tenant Context Propagation.
• OpenBao runtime secret authority.
• Central Audit Ledger.