Data Encryption (SSE)

MinIO Server-Side Encryption (SSE) protects objects as part of write operations, allowing clients to take advantage of server processing power to secure objects at the storage layer (encryption-at-rest). SSE also provides key functionality to regulatory and compliance requirements around secure locking and erasure.

MinIO SSE uses the MinIO Key Encryption Service (KES) and an external Key Management Service (KMS) for performing secured cryptographic operations at scale. MinIO also supports client-managed key management, where the application takes full responsibility for creating and managing encryption keys for use with MinIO SSE.

MinIO supports the following KMS as the central key store:

MinIO SSE requires enabling Network Encryption (TLS).

Supported Encryption Types

MinIO SSE is feature and API compatible with AWS Server-Side Encryption and supports the following encryption strategies:

SSE-KMS Recommended

MinIO supports enabling automatic SSE-KMS encryption of all objects written to a bucket using a specific External Key (EK) stored on the external KMS. Clients can override the bucket-default EK by specifying an explicit key as part of the write operation.

For buckets without automatic SSE-KMS encryption, clients can specify an EK as part of the write operation instead.

MinIO encrypts backend data as part of enabling server-side encryption. You cannot disable SSE-KMS encryption once enabled.

SSE-KMS provides more granular and customizable encryption compared to SSE-S3 and SSE-C and is recommended over the other supported encryption methods.

For a tutorial on enabling SSE-KMS in a local (non-production) MinIO Deployment, see Quickstart.

SSE-S3

MinIO supports enabling automatic SSE-S3 encryption of all objects written to a bucket using an EK stored on the external KMS. MinIO SSE-S3 supports one EK for the entire deployment.

For buckets without automatic SSE-S3 encryption, clients can request SSE encryption as part of the write operation instead.

MinIO encrypts backend data as part of enabling server-side encryption. You cannot disable SSE-KMS encryption once enabled.

For a tutorial on enabling SSE-s3 in a local (non-production) MinIO Deployment, see Quickstart.

SSE-C

Clients specify an EK as part of the write operation for an object. MinIO uses the specified EK to perform SSE-S3.

SSE-C does not support bucket-default encryption settings and requires clients perform all key management operations.