The initial public draft of NIST Special Publication (SP) 800-57 Part 1 Revision 6, Recommendation for Key Management: Part 1 – General, is available for comment through February 5, 2026. This recommendation provides general guidelines and best practices for managing cryptographic keying material.
Some of the proposed changes from Revision 5 include:
- Ascon, as specified in SP 800-232, and the new quantum-resistant algorithms specified in Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 203, 204, and 205 have been included.
- The keys used for both key establishment and key storage are now discussed separately.
- The security categories used in the Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) competition have been included, along with the quantum-resistant algorithms.
- The time frames for algorithm approval status have been removed and replaced with references to SP 800-131A.
- A section has been added to discuss keying material storage and mechanisms.
A complete list of changes is in Appendix F of the draft.
See the publication details for a copy of the draft and instructions for submitting comments.