BYOE (bring your own encryption)

BYOE (bring your own encryption) is a cloud computing security model that allows cloud service customers to use their own encryption software and manage their own encryption keys.  BYOE may also be referred to as "bring your own key" (BYOK).

BYOE works by allowing customers to deploy a virtualized instance of their own encryption software alongside the business application they are hosting in the cloud.  The business application is configured so that all its data is processed by the encryption application, which then writes the ciphertext version of the data to the cloud service provider’s physical data store. 

BYOE can help an organization that wishes to take advantage of cloud services to address both regulatory compliance and data privacy concerns in a third-party multi-tenant environment. This approach allows a customer to use the encryption technology that best suits the customer's needs, regardless of the cloud provider's underlying IT infrastructure.  

See also: cloud storage encryption, encryption key management