Core engineering and protocols for API Credential Envelope Encryption.
In large-scale cloud applications, encrypting large datasets or thousands of configuration secrets with asymmetric public-key cryptography directly is computationally inefficient. Envelope encryption solves this by combining asymmetric and symmetric ciphers: data is encrypted with a fast, ephemeral symmetric Data Encryption Key (DEK), which is then encapsulated under a master Key Encryption Key (KEK).
AP2Shield implements post-quantum envelope encryption: master KEKs are generated using FIPS 203 ML-KEM-768 inside cloud HSMs. When an application stores a database credential or third-party API secret, a fresh 256-bit AES-GCM key is generated, and ML-KEM encapsulates the key. The encrypted secret and encapsulated key blob are stored safely in Kubernetes Secrets or HashiCorp Vault.