"The purpose of a PKI is to facilitate the secure electronic transfer of information for a range of network activities such as e-commerce, internet banking and confidential email."
A system for managing the creation, distribution, and revocation of digital certificates.
Cryptography basics: This includes an introduction to the concepts of encryption, decryption, symmetric and asymmetric cryptography, and key generation.
Digital signatures: This topic covers the process of creating and verifying digital signatures for ensuring data integrity, authenticity, and non-repudiation.
Certificate authorities: This involves the various types of entities that issue digital certificates, such as trusted root certificate authorities (CA) and intermediate CAs.
Certificate revocation: This topic outlines the process of revoking digital certificates, the reasons for revocation, and the various methods used to carry out the revocation.
Certificate trust models: This includes an overview of the different trust models used by CAs to establish trust relationships with end-users.
PKI protocols and standards: This topic covers the various PKI protocols and standards used in PKI implementations, such as X.509, SSL/TLS, and S/MIME.
PKI infrastructure components: This includes an overview of the various components of a PKI infrastructure, such as the registration authority, certificate database, and certificate policy.
PKI use cases: This topic covers the various use cases where PKI is applied, such as secure email, secure web browsing, and secure messaging.
Public key encryption algorithms: This involves a detailed explanation of public key encryption algorithms like RSA and elliptic curve cryptography.
Certificate management: This topic outlines the various practices used for managing digital certificates, such as certificate enrollment, renewal, and key recovery.
X.509 PKI: This is the most common type of PKI used in SSL/TLS certificates. It identifies public keys in digital certificates and user authentication.
Web of Trust: This type of PKI depends on user validations and endorsements to establish trust in other users' public keys. It is commonly used in PGP encryption.
Kerberos: It is a type of PKI that provides centralized authentication for network services. It uses a ticket-granting server to verify identities and issue keys.
Simple PKI (SPKI): It is a lightweight PKI that provides public key certification and management without complex infrastructure.
Object Identifiers (OIDs) PKI: This type of PKI assigns unique identifiers to cryptographic algorithms, key types, and other information used in certificates and public keys.
Hierarchical PKI: This type of PKI organizes trust levels in a hierarchical structure, with Root Certification Authority (CA) at the top followed by Intermediate CAs and end-entity certificates at the bottom.
Bridge PKI: It is used to connect different PKI environments.
Federated PKI: It enables different organizations to authenticate with each other based on mutual trust in their respective PKIs.
Identity-Based Encryption PKI: This type of PKI enables email encryption using only the recipient's email address as the public key.
Hyper Text Transport Protocol Secure (HTTPS) PKI: It uses digital certificates to secure web traffic between the client and server.
"A PKI is a set of roles, policies, hardware, software, and procedures needed to create, manage, distribute, use, store, and revoke digital certificates and manage public-key encryption."
"It is required for activities where simple passwords are an inadequate authentication method and more rigorous proof is required to confirm the identity of the parties involved in the communication and to validate the information being transferred."
"The binding is established through a process of registration and issuance of certificates at and by a certificate authority (CA)."
"An RA is responsible for accepting requests for digital certificates and authenticating the entity making the request."
"The identification and authentication of certificate applicants, the approval or rejection of certificate applications, initiating certificate revocations or suspensions under certain circumstances, processing subscriber requests to revoke or suspend their certificates, and approving or rejecting requests by subscribers to renew or re-key their certificates."
"A third-party validation authority (VA) can provide this entity information on behalf of the CA."
"The X.509 standard defines the most commonly used format for public key certificates."
"Depending on the assurance level of the binding, this may be carried out by an automated process or under human supervision."
"E-commerce, internet banking, and confidential email rely on PKI for secure electronic transfer of information."
"A set of hardware, software, and procedures are needed to manage public-key encryption in a PKI system."
"A PKI is required to confirm the identity of the parties involved in the communication and to validate the information being transferred."
"The purpose of digital certificates is to bind public keys with respective identities of entities."
"Digital certificates are managed through a process of registration and issuance at a certificate authority (CA)."
"In the Microsoft PKI case, the RA functionality is provided either by the Microsoft Certificate Services website or through Active Directory Certificate Services."
"RAs are responsible for accepting requests for digital certificates, authenticating the entity making the request, and managing the vetting and provisioning of certificates."
"RAs do not have the signing authority of a CA and only manage the vetting and provisioning of certificates."
"Activities where simple passwords are inadequate authentication methods, such as e-commerce, internet banking, and confidential email, require PKI authentication."
"A PKI system uses a process of registration and issuance of certificates to validate the identity of entities involved in communication."
"A third-party validation authority (VA) can provide entity information on behalf of the CA to ensure each entity is uniquely identifiable within the CA domain."