Cryptographic keys are durably stored for an amount of time. A cryptographic key is encrypted so as to be decryptable using another cryptographic key that has a limited lifetime. The other cryptographic key can be used to decrypt the encrypted cryptographic key to restore the cryptographic key during the lifetime of the other cryptographic key. After the lifetime of the other cryptographic key, if a copy of the cryptographic key is lost (e.g., inadvertently and unrecoverably deleted from memory), the cryptographic key becomes irrecoverable.