METHODS AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCTS FOR ENCRYPTION KEY GENERATION AND MANAGEMENT

The described embodiments relate to encryption methods and computer program products. An encryption application is used to determine a keystore seed with a seed bit set having seed bits in an ordered sequence. A plurality of key derivation sets are determined and a selected key derivation set is selected randomly. A key bit sequence is generated from the seed bit set using the selected key derivation set. An encryption key is generated using the key bit sequence, and corresponding keying information is determined from the selected key derivation set such that the latter is also derivable from the former. The keying information discloses zero information about the encryption key absent knowledge of the keystore seed. Plaintext data is encrypted using the encryption key to generate ciphertext data, and the keying information is stored with the ciphertext data. The encryption key may then be deleted.