Data security

HCP Terraform takes the security of the data it manages seriously. This table lists which parts of the HCP Terraform and Terraform Enterprise app can contain sensitive data, what storage is used, and what encryption is used.

HCP Terraform and Terraform Enterprise

Object	Storage	Encrypted
Terraform Configuration (VCS data)	Blob Storage	Vault Transit Encryption
Private Registry Modules	Blob Storage	Vault Transit Encryption
Sentinel Policies	PostgreSQL	Vault Transit Encryption
Terraform/Environment Variables	PostgreSQL	Vault Transit Encryption
Terraform/Provider Credentials	PostgreSQL	Vault Transit Encryption
Terraform State File	Blob Storage	Vault Transit Encryption
Terraform Plan Result	Blob Storage	Vault Transit Encryption
Terraform Audit Trails	PostgreSQL	No
Organization/Workspace/Team Settings	PostgreSQL	No

HCP Terraform and Terraform Enterprise Secrets

Object	Storage	Encrypted
Account Password	PostgreSQL	bcrypt
2FA Recovery Codes	PostgreSQL	Vault Transit Encryption
SSH Keys	PostgreSQL	Vault Transit Encryption
User/Team/Organization Tokens	PostgreSQL	HMAC SHA512
OAuth Client ID + Secret	PostgreSQL	Vault Transit Encryption
OAuth User Tokens	PostgreSQL	Vault Transit Encryption

HCP Terraform Specific

Object	Storage	Encrypted
Cloud Data Backups	Amazon S3	SSE-S3
Cloud Copy of Backups for DR	Amazon S3	SSE-S3

Please see HashiCorp Cloud subprocessors for third-parties engaged by HashiCorp to deliver cloud services.

Terraform Enterprise Specific

Object	Storage	Encrypted
Twilio Account Configuration	PostgreSQL	Vault Transit Encryption
SMTP Configuration	PostgreSQL	Vault Transit Encryption
SAML Configuration	PostgreSQL	Vault Transit Encryption
Vault Unseal Key	PostgreSQL	ChaCha20+Poly1305

Vault Transit Encryption

The Vault Transit Secret Engine handles encryption for data in-transit and is used when encrypting data from the application to persistent storage.

Blob Storage Encryption

All objects persisted to blob storage are symmetrically encrypted prior to being written. Each object is encrypted with a unique encryption key. Objects are encrypted using 128 bit AES in CTR mode. The key material is processed through the Vault transit secret engine, which uses the default transit encryption cipher (AES-GCM with a 256-bit AES key and a 96-bit nonce), and stored alongside the object. This pattern is called envelope encryption.

The Vault transit secret engine's datakey generation creates the encryption key material using bit material from the kernel's cryptographically secure pseudo-random number generator (CSPRNG) as the context value. Blob storage encryption generates a unique key for each object and relies on envelope encryption, so Vault does not rotate the encryption key material for individual objects. The root encryption keys within the envelope encryption scheme are rotated automatically by HCP Terraform every 365 days. These keys are not automatically rotated within TFE.