Security

Defense in depth, by construction

Every design decision favors boundaries over convenience — so a compromise in one layer does not become a compromise in the next.

Zero-knowledge portal

The portal is a stateless BFF — it holds no database, no secrets, and no key material. All sensitive operations are proxied to backend services over authenticated channels.

Envelope encryption

Each secret is encrypted with its own Data Encryption Key (DEK). The DEK is wrapped by a Key Encryption Key (KEK) in the KMS. Compromising one secret does not expose any other.

Non-exportable root keys

The KMS root key never leaves the service boundary. KEKs are stored wrapped at rest and can only be unwrapped inside the KMS process. Rotation is admin-gated and fully audited.

Blind index

Secret names are never stored in plaintext. A keyed HMAC produces a deterministic blind index that allows lookup without disclosure — names never appear in URLs, logs, or audit trails.

Ephemeral credentials

Actionsets like pgsql mint short-lived database roles with VALID UNTIL and clean them up on expiry or explicit delete. No credential outlives its usefulness.

Full audit trail

Every decrypt, rotation, and expiry is recorded with the caller's identity, timestamp, and context. Secret version history tracks who rotated what and when — old values are never stored.

The boundaries

Four services, three databases, one root key. Nothing that matters shares a process with the thing presenting it.

Portal Stateless BFF · SPA + API · holds no secrets
Identity Users, sessions, orgs, teams, roles
Key Management Wrap, unwrap, rotate versioned KEKs
Secrets Ciphertext, versions, audit, actionsets
Identity DB Credentials, sessions, membership
KMS DB Wrapped KEKs, rotation audit
Secrets DB Ciphertext only, secret audit events

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Bring your own root key and your own infrastructure — Aker keeps the boundaries.

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