cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adver ...

, PKCS #8 is a standard syntax for storing

private key Public-key cryptography, or asymmetric cryptography, is the field of cryptographic systems that use pairs of related keys. Each key pair consists of a public key and a corresponding private key. Key pairs are generated with cryptographic alg ...

information. PKCS #8 is one of the family of standards called Public-Key Cryptography Standards (PKCS) created by

RSA Laboratories RSA Security LLC, formerly RSA Security, Inc. and doing business as RSA, is an American computer and network security company with a focus on encryption and encryption standards. RSA was named after the initials of its co-founders, Ron Rivest, ...

. The latest version, 1.2, is available as RFC 5208. The PKCS #8 private key may be encrypted with a

passphrase A passphrase is a sequence of words or other text used to control access to a computer system, program or data. It is similar to a password in usage, but a passphrase is generally longer for added security. Passphrases are often used to control ...

using the PKCS #5 standards, which supports multiple ciphers. - Public-Key Cryptography Standards (PKCS) #8: Private-Key Information Syntax Specification Version 1.2 A new version 2 was proposed by S. Turner in 2010 as RFC 5958 - Asymmetric Key Packages and might obsolete RFC 5208 someday in the future. PKCS #8 private keys are typically exchanged in the PEM

base64 In computer programming, Base64 is a group of binary-to-text encoding schemes that represent binary data (more specifically, a sequence of 8-bit bytes) in sequences of 24 bits that can be represented by four 6-bit Base64 digits. Common to all bina ...

-encoded format, for example: -----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY----- MIIBVgIBADANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAASCAUAwggE8AgEAAkEAq7BFUpkGp3+LQmlQ Yx2eqzDV+xeG8kx/sQFV18S5JhzGeIJNA72wSeukEPojtqUyX2J0CciPBh7eqclQ 2zpAswIDAQABAkAgisq4+zRdrzkwH1ITV1vpytnkO/NiHcnePQiOW0VUybPyHoGM /jf75C5xET7ZQpBe5kx5VHsPZj0CBb3b+wSRAiEA2mPWCBytosIU/ODRfq6EiV04 lt6waE7I2uSPqIC20LcCIQDJQYIHQII+3YaPqyhGgqMexuuuGx+lDKD6/Fu/JwPb 5QIhAKthiYcYKlL9h8bjDsQhZDUACPasjzdsDEdq8inDyLOFAiEAmCr/tZwA3qeA ZoBzI10DGPIuoKXBd3nk/eBxPkaxlEECIQCNymjsoI7GldtujVnr1qT+3yedLfHK srDVjIT3LsvTqw

-----END PRIVATE KEY----- -----BEGIN ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY----- MIIBrzBJBgkqhkiG9w0BBQ0wPDAbBgkqhkiG9w0BBQwwDgQImQO8S8BJYNACAggA MB0GCWCGSAFlAwQBKgQQ398SY1Y6moXTJCO0PSahKgSCAWDeobyqIkAb9XmxjMmi hABtlIJBsybBymdIrtPjtRBTmz+ga40KFNfKgTrtHO/3qf0wSHpWmKlQotRh6Ufk 0VBh4QjbcNFQLzqJqblW4E3v853PK1G4OpQNpFLDLaPZLIyzxWOom9c9GXNm+ddG LbdeQRsPoolIdL61lYB505K/SXJCpemb1RCHO/dzsp/kRyLMQNsWiaJABkSyskcr eDJBZWOGQ/WJKl1CMHC8XgjqvmpXXas47G5sMSgFs+NUqVSkMSrsWMa+XkH/oT/x P8ze1v0RDu0AIqaxdZhZ389h09BKFvCAFnLKK0tadIRkZHtNahVWnFUks5EP3C1k 2cQQtWBkaZnRrEkB3H0/ty++WB0owHe7Pd9GKSnTMIo8gmQzT2dfZP3+flUFHTBs RZ9L8UWp2zt5hNDtc82hyNs70SETaSsaiygYNbBGlVAWVR9Mp8SMNYr1kdeGRgc3 7r5E -----END ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY-----

References

Cryptography standards {{Crypto-stub