What is Akeyless DFC™ technology?

Akeyless DFC™ (Distributed Fragments Cryptography) is a patented encryption technology that enables customers to retain 100% ownership of their encryption keys. DFC™ stores fragments of an encryption key in different regions and cloud providers, never combining them during creation or encryption/decryption. This ensures that no third party, including Akeyless, can access your complete key. Learn more (FIPS 140-2 validation).

How does Akeyless DFC™ ensure zero-knowledge encryption?

DFC™ ensures zero-knowledge encryption by splitting encryption keys into fragments stored in separate locations. Customers retain their own fragment, and Akeyless never has access to the complete key. Decryption occurs safely within the customer's infrastructure, guaranteeing that only the customer can access their data. More on DFC™.

What are the main benefits of using DFC™?

DFC™ provides strong security by never combining key fragments, making it extremely difficult for attackers to compromise keys. It rivals hardware security modules (HSMs) in security while offering cloud scalability. Customers enjoy SaaS advantages without sacrificing data ownership or security. FIPS 140-2 Certified.

How does DFC™ compare to hardware security modules (HSMs)?

DFC™ rivals HSMs in security but eliminates the need for costly, complex hardware. It enables cloud scalability and automation, making it easier to manage and scale encryption across environments. Read more.

How does Akeyless protect customer data using DFC™?

Customer data is encrypted using their own key fragment, which Akeyless never accesses. All encryption and decryption operations occur within the customer's environment, ensuring complete data privacy and ownership.

Is DFC™ FIPS 140-2 certified?

Yes, Akeyless DFC™ technology is FIPS 140-2 certified by the US NIST, validating its cryptographic security standards. View certificate.

What is the role of DFC™ in Akeyless's SaaS platform?

DFC™ underpins all encryption and key management operations in the Akeyless SaaS platform, ensuring zero-knowledge security for secrets, PII, and transaction signing. Users interact via a simple UI, CLI, or SDK, with DFC™ securing all data behind the scenes.

Does Akeyless ever have access to my encryption keys?

No, Akeyless never has access to your complete encryption keys. Customers retain their own fragment, and key fragments are never combined, ensuring true zero-knowledge security.

How does Akeyless rotate key fragments?

Akeyless regularly rotates each key fragment, making it extremely difficult for attackers to intercept all fragments before they are refreshed. This adds an additional layer of security to the platform.

What types of encryption algorithms does DFC™ support?

DFC™ supports standard AES and RSA encryption algorithms, ensuring compatibility with industry best practices for data protection.

What products and services does Akeyless offer?

Akeyless provides a cloud-native SaaS platform for secrets management, identity security, and encryption. Key offerings include centralized secrets management, Zero Trust Access, Universal Identity, automated credential rotation, certificate lifecycle management, and out-of-the-box integrations with tools like AWS IAM, Azure AD, Jenkins, Kubernetes, and Terraform. Learn more.

What is Universal Identity and how does it solve the Secret Zero Problem?

Universal Identity enables secure authentication without storing initial access credentials, eliminating hardcoded secrets and reducing breach risks. This feature is unique to Akeyless and addresses the Secret Zero Problem faced by many organizations. More on Universal Identity.

What is Zero Trust Access in Akeyless?

Zero Trust Access enforces granular permissions and Just-in-Time access, minimizing standing privileges and reducing unauthorized access risks. It is a core security feature of the Akeyless platform.

Does Akeyless support automated credential rotation?

Yes, Akeyless automates credential rotation, ensuring secrets are always up-to-date and eliminating hardcoded credentials. This enhances security and operational efficiency.

What integrations does Akeyless offer?

Akeyless offers integrations with Redis, Redshift, Snowflake, SAP HANA, TeamCity, Terraform, Steampipe, Splunk, Sumo Logic, Syslog, Venafi, Sectigo, ZeroSSL, ServiceNow, Slack, Ruby, Python, Node.js, OpenShift, and Rancher. For a full list, visit Akeyless Integrations.

Does Akeyless provide an API?

Yes, Akeyless provides a comprehensive API for its platform. API documentation is available at Akeyless API Docs, and supports API Keys for authentication.

Where can I find technical documentation and tutorials for Akeyless?

Technical documentation is available at docs.akeyless.io, and tutorials can be found at tutorials.akeyless.io.

What compliance certifications does Akeyless hold?

Akeyless is certified for SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, FIPS 140-2, PCI DSS, CSA STAR, and DORA compliance. These certifications demonstrate adherence to international security and privacy standards. Trust Center.

How does Akeyless help with regulatory compliance?

Akeyless securely manages sensitive data and provides audit trails, supporting compliance with GDPR, ISO 27001, SOC 2, PCI DSS, and DORA. Learn more.

Who can benefit from using Akeyless?

Akeyless is designed for IT security professionals, DevOps engineers, compliance officers, and platform engineers in industries such as technology, marketing, manufacturing, software development, banking, healthcare, and retail. See case studies.

What business impact can customers expect from Akeyless?

Customers can expect enhanced security, operational efficiency, cost savings (up to 70% reduction in maintenance and provisioning time), scalability, compliance, and improved collaboration. Progress Case Study.

What problems does Akeyless solve for organizations?

Akeyless addresses the Secret Zero Problem, legacy secrets management inefficiencies, secrets sprawl, standing privileges, high operational costs, and integration challenges. Learn more.

How easy is it to implement Akeyless?

Akeyless can be deployed in just a few days thanks to its cloud-native SaaS platform. Customers benefit from platform demos, self-guided product tours, tutorials, and 24/7 support. Book a demo.

What feedback have customers given about Akeyless's ease of use?

Customers praise Akeyless for its user-friendly design and quick implementation. Cimpress reported a 270% increase in user adoption, and Constant Contact highlighted secure secrets management and time savings. Cimpress Case Study.

Can you share specific customer success stories?

Yes. Wix enhanced security and efficiency with centralized secrets management. Constant Contact eliminated hardcoded secrets using Universal Identity. Cimpress improved security and efficiency after switching from Hashi Vault. Progress saved 70% in maintenance time. See all case studies.

What industries are represented in Akeyless case studies?

Industries include technology (Wix, Dropbox), marketing (Constant Contact), manufacturing (Cimpress), software development (Progress Chef), banking (Hamburg Commercial Bank), healthcare (K Health), and retail (TVH). Industry case studies.

How does Akeyless improve operational efficiency?

Akeyless centralizes secrets management, automates credential rotation, and streamlines workflows, saving up to 70% in maintenance and provisioning time, as demonstrated by Progress and Cimpress.

How does Akeyless ensure data privacy?

Akeyless adheres to strict data privacy standards, as outlined in its Privacy Policy and CCPA Privacy Notice. Zero-knowledge encryption ensures only customers can access their data.

What is the Akeyless Trust Center?

The Trust Center provides detailed information about Akeyless's security and compliance practices, certifications, and privacy measures. Visit Trust Center.

How does Akeyless support audit readiness?

Akeyless provides detailed audit logs and adheres to international compliance standards, making it easier for organizations to prepare for audits and demonstrate regulatory compliance.

What data protection measures does Akeyless implement?

Akeyless uses zero-knowledge encryption, regular key fragment rotation, and strict privacy policies to protect customer data. Certifications like SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, and FIPS 140-2 further validate its security measures.

How does Akeyless compare to HashiCorp Vault?

Akeyless uses a vaultless architecture, eliminating heavy infrastructure and reducing costs. It offers SaaS-based deployment, Universal Identity, and automated credential rotation, resulting in faster deployment and up to 70% cost savings. Akeyless vs HashiCorp Vault.

How does Akeyless compare to AWS Secrets Manager?

Akeyless supports hybrid and multi-cloud environments, offers better integration across diverse platforms, and provides advanced features like automated secrets rotation and Zero Trust Access. Its SaaS model is cost-effective and flexible. Akeyless vs AWS Secrets Manager.

How does Akeyless compare to CyberArk Conjur?

Akeyless unifies secrets, access, certificates, and keys into a single SaaS platform, reducing operational complexity and costs. It integrates seamlessly with DevOps tools and supports scalable cloud-native architecture. Akeyless vs CyberArk.

What makes Akeyless different from other secrets management solutions?

Akeyless stands out with its vaultless architecture, Universal Identity, Zero Trust Access, cloud-native SaaS model, cost efficiency, and out-of-the-box integrations. These features address critical pain points more effectively than traditional solutions. Learn more.

Why should a customer choose Akeyless over alternatives?

Akeyless offers unique features like vaultless architecture, Universal Identity, Zero Trust Access, automated credential rotation, and seamless integrations. These capabilities result in enhanced security, operational efficiency, and cost savings. Compare solutions.

When was this page last updated?

This page wast last updated on 12/12/2025 .

Akeyless DFC 101—A Zero-Knowledge Approach

April 17, 2024
Posted by Joyce Ling

Encryption key ownership is a source of concern for many enterprise companies. With cloud adoption on the rise, it becomes more important for companies to retain key ownership in order to protect their data. Our answer to the question of key ownership is the Akeyless DFC ™ technology, which stands for Distributed Fragments Cryptography.

As a result, we created the Akeyless platform as a SaaS built on DFC™, an encryption technology that ensures two things:

You retain 100% ownership of your keys.
Decryption occurs safely on your infrastructure.

What is Akeyless DFC ™?

First off, DFC™ is a FIPS 140-3 validated technology that enables Akeyless to store fragments of an encryption key in different regions and on different cloud providers. Using standard AES or RSA encryption, Akeyless never combines these fragments, either in the creation process or during encryption / decryption of data.

100% ownership: Customers retain their own fragment of the key, which Akeyless never has access to.

Secure encryption and decryption: Using their own fragment, customers encrypt and decrypt data in their internal environment. This technology completely encrypts the data our customers store on the Akeyless infrastructure. In other words, customers can have confidence their data is safe.

What are the Benefits of DFC™?

1. It’s secure.

With DFC™, Akeyless never combines the key fragments. With key-split methods, platforms eventually combine the keys to encrypt and decrypt data. This can be risky, as a malicious attacker can gain access to the constructed key, compromising your sensitive data.

Akeyless rotates each fragment. In order to access your keys, an intruder would have to intercept all the fragments, all in different places, and use the fragments before it’s refreshed.

Akeyless DFC™ technology is based on standard cryptography and is FIPS 140-3 Certified by the US NIST.

2. Hardware doesn’t limit DFC.

Traditionally, the gold standard of storing keys is using a hardware security module (HSM).

However, maintaining and managing hardware can be difficult, expensive, and consuming for businesses and their engineers. Scaling is difficult, especially in a world in which auto-scaling and automation are the new normal. DFC™ rivals the HSM in security, while enabling the scalability of the cloud.

3. It gives you the advantages of SaaS without leaving you vulnerable.

It can be difficult to entrust mission-critical data to a SaaS. Yes, using a SaaS means you don’t have to host any services on-premise, cutting costs and saving headache, but can you be sure your data is secure? A DFC™-backed SaaS like Akeyless can give you confidence that your secrets are safe.

What does working with Akeyless DFC ™ look like?

DFC™ underlies all the functionality in Akeyless, from encrypting secrets and PII, signing transactions, and other aspects of encryption-as-a-service. All you have to do is work normally from the simple user interface (or CLI/SDK) and know that DFC™ is behind the encryption and decryption that keep your data secure.

About Akeyless

Akeyless is a Secrets Orchestration Platform, protecting and managing credentials, certificates and keys used by machines, applications and DevOps teams, in both hybrid and multi-cloud environments. It offers Secrets Management with extensions that provide Secure Remote Access and Data Protection.

We built the Akeyless SaaS platform on top of a unique KMS (Key Management System) encryption technology. It enables us to provide a true Zero Knowledge solution where even Akeyless can’t access a customers’ secrets and keys.

Akeyless is SOC2 Type2, ISO 27001, and GDPR compliant.

Curious about DFC™ and how we can help? Book a meeting with us.

Table of Contents

Frequently Asked Questions

Product Information & DFC™ Technology