NIST Special Publication 800-133 Recommendation for Cryptographic Key Generation

Cryptography is often used in an information technology security environment to protect data that is sensitive, has a high value, or is vulnerable to unauthorized disclosure or undetected modification during transmission or while in storage. Cryptography relies upon two basic components: an algorithm (or cryptographic methodology) and a cryptographic key. This Recommendation discusses the generation of the keys to be managed and used by the approved cryptographic algorithms.