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 adve ...

, 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 security, computer and network security company with a focus on encryption and encryption standards. RSA was named after the initials of its co-fo ...

. 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