Public key infrastructure (PKI) is a catch-all term for everything used to establish and manage public key encryption. And PKI is important because the combination of encryption and authentication makes trustworthy in online communication.
There are two main components of PKI. It is called
Cryptography and Digital Certificates.
- Cryptography provides for secure communication in the presence of malicious third parties known as adversaries. There are two types of Cryptography:
- Public key or asymmetric cryptography is a cryptographic system that uses pairs of keys.
- Private key or symmetric cryptography encryption system in which the sender and receiver of a message share a single, common key that is used to encrypt and decrypt the message.
- Digital Certificate are the credentials that facilitate the verification of identities between users in a transaction. There are two types of Digital Certificates:
- Agency Certificates a document that is issued by a specific agency and digitally signed by CPS Policy Authority.
- SSL Certificates enables data encryption on the internet and allow data to be transmitted securely from a web server to a browser. It uses the https protocol and will display a padlock in end users web browser to indicate the connection is secure.