Public Key Certificate
A Public Key Certificate is an electronic document that proves ownership of a public key.
- AKA: Digital Identity Certificate.
- See: Certificate Signing Request, Cryptography, Digital Signature, Public-Key Infrastructure, Certificate Authority, VeriSign, Web of Trust, Self-Signed Certificate, Transport Layer Security, Website, Email Encryption, Code Signing, OpenVPN, SSL.
References
2015
- (Wikipedia, 2015) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/public_key_certificate Retrieved:2015-1-12.
- In cryptography, a public key certificate (also known as a digital certificate or identity certificate) is an electronic document used to prove ownership of a public key. The certificate includes information about the key, information about its owner's identity, and the digital signature of an entity that has verified the certificate's contents are correct. If the signature is valid, and the person examining the certificate trusts the signer, then they know they can use that key to communicate with its owner.
In a typical public-key infrastructure (PKI) scheme, the signer is a certificate authority (CA), usually a company such as VeriSign which charges customers to issue certificates for them. In a web of trust scheme, the signer is either the key's owner (a self-signed certificate) or other users ("endorsements") whom the person examining the certificate might know and trust.
Certificates are an important component of Transport Layer Security (TLS, sometimes called by its older name SSL), where they prevent an attacker from impersonating a secure website or other server. They are also used in other important applications, such as email encryption and code signing.
- In cryptography, a public key certificate (also known as a digital certificate or identity certificate) is an electronic document used to prove ownership of a public key. The certificate includes information about the key, information about its owner's identity, and the digital signature of an entity that has verified the certificate's contents are correct. If the signature is valid, and the person examining the certificate trusts the signer, then they know they can use that key to communicate with its owner.