Key recovery material

Identifies key-recovery and escrow references, while reserving enforcement for records that contain a structured recovery value. A phrase alone is discovery-only; system identity and custody/escrow fields distinguish a high-confidence recovery-material record.

Type

regex

Engine

boost_regex

Confidence

medium

Confidence justification

structural regex with domain-specific anchors and constrained context replaces phrase-only marker. Added context gating and exclusion rules improve precision and reduce incidental matches.

Detection quality

Topic false positive

Jurisdictions

global

Regulations

GDPR, Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth), NDB Scheme (Cth), SOCI Act 2018 (Cth), TIA Act 1979 (Cth)

Data categories

credentials, security

Scope

wide

Risk rating

8

Platform compatibility

Purview: Compatible, GCP DLP: Compatible, Macie: Compatible, Zscaler: Compatible, Palo Alto: Degraded, Netskope: Unsupported

Pattern

(?is)\b(?:key\s+recovery|recovery\s+key|escrow\s+key|break-glass)\b

Corroborative evidence keywords

key recovery, recovery key, escrow key, break-glass, hsm, kms

Proximity: 240 characters

Should match

• Key recovery procedure is under review — Low-tier probe - recovery phrase without a recovery value
• BitLocker recovery key: 103482-275911-364820-451739-528604-617395-704286-893157 — Medium-tier probe - structured recovery value without custody record
• BitLocker recovery key: 103482-275911-364820-451739-528604-617395-704286-893157; device ID 4f9c2; escrowed to Entra ID; custodian: endpoint-ops — High-tier probe - structured value with system and custody metadata
• Break-glass recovery key 219403-308214-497125-586036-674947-763858-852769-941670 — Medium-tier probe - structured break-glass recovery value

Should not match

• General key performance indicators for project recovery timeline — Unrelated use of key/recovery words
• Generic policy prose without key escrow context — No structural security anchors
• template example placeholder record identifier — Template/sample context should be excluded even when anchor words are present
• Recovery key: 103482-275911-364820-451739-528604-617395-704286 — Malformed recovery value has only seven groups
• BitLocker recovery key: 000000-000000-000000-000000-000000-000000-000000-000000; escrowed to Entra ID — Repeated placeholder recovery value must not enforce
• Documentation example: BitLocker recovery key 103482-275911-364820-451739-528604-617395-704286-893157; escrowed to Entra ID — Documentation quoting a complete recovery record must not enforce
• API key rotation completed for the production application — Sibling secret-management activity is not key-recovery material

Known false positives

• Authentication-related terminology in software documentation, security training materials, or system architecture descriptions without actual credentials. Mitigation: Require proximity to credential-specific patterns (API keys, connection strings, tokens) rather than general security terminology.
• Code snippets and configuration examples containing credential-related keywords or placeholder values in developer documentation. Mitigation: Check for common placeholder patterns (example.com, localhost, 0000) and documentation file types to reduce false positives from technical writing.

References

• https://www.cyber.gov.au/resources-business-and-government/essential-cyber-security/ism
• https://www.cyber.gov.au/resources-business-and-government/essential-cyber-security/essential-eight
• https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/australian-privacy-principles-guidelines/chapter-11-app-11-security-of-personal-information