Public key infrastructure(PKI)

Certificate Authority(CA)

Provides the ability to confirm that a certificates is valid. CA can be used to validate any certificate that was issued using that certficiate authority.

Certificate

• Certficiates are used to confirm(authenticate) identity. They are used to to prove that you are who you say you are
• Also known as a digital certificate, is an electronic document used to prove the ownership of a public key
• The certificate included information about the public key, the identity of its owner(called the subject). And the digital signature of an entity that has verified the certificates' contents(called the issuer). If the signature is valid, and the software examining the certificate trusts the issuer, then it can use that key to communicate securely with the certificate's subject.
• In PKI, the certificate issuer is a certificate authority(CA), ussually a company that charges customers to issue certificates for them.