§ Security & Trust

Receipts, not badges.

Here is how your vault is actually protected — in plain language, with the engineering behind it. Four decisions, written down so we can be held to them.

§ 01 · The four pillars

Decided early. Written down. Revisited by the board.

I · Key management
Keys are yours. We can't read your vault.
Documents and letters are encrypted client-side before they reach us. We hold the ciphertext. Your passphrase, device keys, and recovery codes are never transmitted in the clear.
AlgorithmAES-256-GCM, XChaCha20-Poly1305 at rest
Key materialPer-document DEKs, wrapped by account KEK
Rotation90 days, automatic, transparent
II · Device & session trust
Every device earns its way in.
Passkeys by default, with a passphrase fallback. Two-factor on every new device. Sessions expire in 30 minutes of inactivity. Recovery requires two of three: trusted device, printed recovery kit, named steward.
Sign-inPasskey + email, TOTP fallback
Recovery2-of-3 Shamir secret split
Session30 min idle, 12 h absolute
III · Data residency
Your records live where your law lives.
U.S. vaults are stored in U.S. regions by default, with state-level partitioning triggered where residency requires it (CA, NY, TX, WA). EU coming next. Partner custodians chosen for subpoena transparency records.
Default regionUS-East-1, US-West-2
PartitioningTriggered per-state on sign-up
CustodianAWS · Vanta-audited
IV · SOC 2-ready posture
Building to the controls now, not after.
MVP controls are in place today — access reviews, incident runbooks, encrypted backups, vendor due diligence. SOC 2 Type I target Q3 MMXXVI, Type II the following year. We'll publish the report.
TargetSOC 2 Type I · Q3 2026
FrameworkAICPA TSC · Security, Availability, Confidentiality
MonitoringVanta · continuous
§ 02 · Lifecycle

What happens to a document, from the moment you upload it.

A document's journey through Vestry
i.
Encrypted on your device
Before the first byte leaves your browser, the file is encrypted with a per-document key. We never see plaintext.
Client-side
ii.
Key wrapped, then transmitted
The document key is wrapped by your account key. The ciphertext travels over TLS 1.3 to a U.S. region.
TLS 1.3 · HSTS
iii.
Stored, versioned, signed
Every write is content-addressed, versioned, and signed. Tampering is detectable, not just unlikely.
Sha-256 · Sigstore
iv.
Shared only on your request
A steward request re-wraps the document key to their public key. Never to ours.
Per-steward keypair
v.
Logged & surfaced
Every view, every share, every rotation appears in your audit log within 60 seconds. You'll be emailed for anything unusual.
Audit log · SIEM
vi.
Revoked & shredded
Delete a document, and its keys are destroyed across backups within 30 days. Destruction is verifiable.
30-day crypto-shred
§ 03 · Control posture

What we do now. What we do next.

Encryption at rest & in transit
AES-256-GCM at rest, TLS 1.3 in transit, key rotation every 90 days.
Live
Access reviews
Quarterly review of every employee with production access.
Live
Incident response runbook
Severity definitions, named oncalls, customer-facing disclosure template.
Live
Pen test · external
Annual, report summary published.
Q2 2026
SOC 2 Type I
AICPA TSC: Security, Availability, Confidentiality.
Q3 2026
SOC 2 Type II
Report covering 12-month window.
Q3 2027
State-level residency partitioning
Honors state privacy laws that require in-state storage.
Q4 2026
Customer-signed transparency report
Subpoenas, takedowns, government requests, published quarterly.
Q1 2027
Questions?

Write to us directly. Real engineers answer.

security@vestry.io