These articles speak about the public key infrastructure. The main point I took is that there is a more updated and secure concept to encrypting an email. There is a trusted 3rd party that can establish the integrity and ownership of a public key. The trusted 3rd party is called a certification authority (CA) and they issue the public and private key to the individual’s that want to send out the message. It is a little more complicated but, in the end, it does provide more security to both parties who are emailing with each other.
Hashing validates the integrity of a message and is critical to public key infrastructure. In the context of certificate authorities (CA), message contents are hashed and encrypted using the CA’s private key, and included along with the encrypted message. The recipient validates the message integrity by decrypting the message with the CA’s public key, running the contents through the same hash, and then comparing the hashes. If the hashes match, the integrity of the message is verified.
Certificate authorities are responsible for verifying the identity of covered entities. The use of hashing helps establish the integrity of this process and provides the underpinnings of trust across networks and the internet.
Public key encryption, or public key cryptography, is a method of encrypting data with two different keys and making one of the keys, the public key, available for anyone to use. The other key is known as the private key. Data encrypted with the public key can only be decrypted with the private key, and data encrypted with the private key can only be decrypted with the public key. Public key encryption is also known as asymmetric encryption. It is widely used, especially for TLS/SSL, which makes HTTPS possible.
A server that issues certificates for a particular CA. The certificate server software provides customizable services for issuing and managing certificates used in security systems that employ public key cryptography.
This article explains the public key (PKI) infrastructure and how it works. The basic structure of PKI is a certificate authority, a registration authority, a certificate database, a certificate store, and a key archive server. The certificate authority hashes the information, and the private key encrypts the hash. Ensuring the secrecy of the private key is the main way to prevent information leakage. An X.509 public key certificate binds a public key to a signed data structure of an individual, computer or organization, allowing everyone who secures public key communications to rely on the CA to adequately authenticate the party that issued the certificate.
In addition, The certificate key size or length determines the strength of the public key protection, which means that if 2048 bit RSA key is employed in the SSL certs, then it provides sufficient cryptography security to keep information secure from malicious hackers preventing the possibilities of breaking the cryptography algorithm.
X.509 gives trust to individuals, organizations, and devices to establish connections over the network in this digitalized world. It is used everywhere such as to accessing websites, web applications, online transactions, online documents, etc. due to this certificate we can trust that it is safe to perform secure online activities.
This reading explains the encryption key concept and how a concern is one cannot know with certainty that the key they used for encryption actually belonged to the correct person. It is possible that another party monitoring the communication channel between parties substituted a different key.
The reading then explains how certification authority CA, addressed this concern by issuing signed encrypted binary certificates that affirm the identity of the certificate subject and bind that identity to the public key contained in the certificate. The CA signs the certificate by using its private key. It issues the corresponding public key to all interested parties in a self-signed CA certificate.
What I also find interesting is that Certificate Authorities have to be deemed trustworthy. Technically, anybody can become their own certificate authority and issue out their own certificates. To me the question becomes how we trust certificate authorities and when is it beneficial to self-sign instead of use a CA?
The reading discusses how the certificate authority addressed a flaw in securing communications within asymmetric-key cryptography. In regards to asymmetric-key cryptography, the sender cannot know with absolute certainty that the key they used to encrypt the message actually belonged to the intended receiver. The introduction of public key infrastructure (pki) allows a trusted third party (i.e. the certificate authority) to establish the integrity and ownership of a public key by issuing signed binary certificates to the sender and receiver. The pki process enables the receiver to verify that the public key was not tampered with or corrupted during transit and if the next set of hashes introduced by pki match, the receiver can gain greater assurance that the message is in fact legitimate.
Public key infrastructure is facilitated by a certification authority (CA) and used to establish the integrity and ownership of a public key. Their responsibility is to affirm the identity of the certificate subject and bind that identity to the public key contained in the certificate. Although not mentioned, it is also the CAs duty to refer to the certificate revocation list, a list of digital certificates that have been revoked before their scheduled expiration date, to distinguish invalid and untrusted certificates from valid trusted ones. I am also curious to learn about whether man-in-the-middle attacks can affect the reliability or integrity of the certificate signing process.
X.509 is one of the standard formats for public key certificates and is used to secure digital document transfer over the network. It uses cryptographic key pairs with the identities of websites, individuals, or organizations. X.509 certificates include SSL (Secure Socket Layer)/TLS (Transfer Layer Security) and HTTPS for authenticated or encrypted web browsing. It is the most popular certificate standard to manage identity and security in internet communications and computer networking. It defines the format of PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) certificate which uses the private and public keys to encrypt and decrypt messages, ensuring the identity of the sender and receiver of messages.
X.509 certificate issued by Certificate Authority (CA) after the verification of the identity of the requester. The certificate user can be confident that the certificate owner or hostname domain name has been validated. X.509 certificate includes detailed information identifying who’s issued the certificate and which certificate authority issued it. The standard fields include various files such as version, serial number, algorithm information, issuer name, the validity period of the certificate, and the subject public key information Serial number – the unique serial number issued by the certificate authority to each to as an identifier.
The most common algorithms used to create public keys are.
• Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA)
• Elliptic curve cryptography (ECC)
• Digital signature algorithm (DSA)
This explains the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) encryption concept which consists of some key hardware and software elements and a trusted third-party certification authority (CA), certificate database, and registration authority.
The infrastructure provides integrity and ownership of certificates which ensure a secure communication medium between parties over the internet. Individuals, systems, and other public entities rely on CA’s to verify the identities of the request key, assign certificates, and store the certificate in a database.
The knowledge here is to verify before issuing a certificate, the CA hashes the contents, signs (encrypts) the hash by using the required private key, and includes the encrypted hash in the issued certificate. Then verifies the certificate contents by decrypting the hash with the CA public key, performing a separate hash of the certificate contents, and comparing the two hashes. If they match, It means the integrity has be proven certain that the certificate and the public key it contains have not been altered
I want to say CAs manage the lifecycle and validation of issued certificates, and PKI certificates are communicated securely and with integrity. PKI provides a standard framework for encryption and data communication, which allows the PKI core to establish trust between clients, servers, and CAs.
The use of a public key infrastructure helps in verifying that the public keys really belong to the individuals that claim they do. Adding these additional safeguards with the use of Certificate Authorities contribute to the confidentiality of communication. If an individual can further ensure that the public key, they are encrypting their communication with can only be decrypted by the intended individual they wish to send the communications to, then this solves a problem of encrypting communication with the wrong key. However, in this infrastructure presents a new problem. The certificate authorities that verify the identities of individuals they issue certificates for need to be under extremely tight security. If it became that one of these authorities was compromised and they issued false certificates, it would cause a great deal of damage, and could be very difficult to detect. The use of CAs are a necessary tool in PKI but it creates a bottleneck in terms of security.
An important concept I learned from this reading is being able to recognize what the role is of a certificate authority in public-key infrastructure. The CA puts out a signed digital certificate containing its public key. When the sender wants to send the encrypted message to the receiver, the sender must encrypt the message with the receiver’s public key so that the receiver will be able to decrypt the message. The receiver then sends their public key to the sender as well as the CA, and the CA adds the public key to the CA’s digital certificate, and sends that to the sender. The public key is then verified by the sender by comparing the public keys sent by the receiver and the CA. This ensures that the message was not tampered with by a third party.
This topic came up a couple of weeks ago for me for Certificate Authorities and the misunderstanding between them. There is an organization who thinks that self-signing is automatically a vulnerability and doesn’t want to issue their own certificates and place them under their authority. A common misconception is that you SHOULD NOT self-sign a certificate under the context of connecting to multiple external networks because the end user cannot prove that you are trusted or not. Because you aren’t published publicly. However, an organization can become their own certificate authorities if assets remain local and isolated within their enclave. Because they know that they are the trustee and can issue the certificates to their own equipment.
The X.509 certificates are robust public key certificates that are based on International Telecommunication Union X.509 standard. These certificates are used to identify and security in internet communication and computer networking. There are 3 versions for X.509 standard. The benefits of these certificates are trust and scalability.
Public key infrastructure (PKI) is a framework of programs, procedures, communication protocols, and public key cryptography that enables people to communicate in a secure and predictable fashion. It is the process of managing practically every aspect of digital certificates. This covers the policies, procedures, the hardware and the software behind digital certificates, as well as the entire digital certificate process.
Digital Certificate Process:
-Create
-Distribute
-Manage
-Store
-Revoke
Good post! This concept consists of making sure that your message has not been altered during transmission and this is done by a trusted party called a certification of authority who verifies the identity by “signing binary certificates that affirm the identity of the certificate subject and bind that identity to the public key contained in the certificate”
Hey Ornella, thank you for the insight. Sound like integrity is a top priority based off of your response. However, confidentiality also seems to be of concern as well.
Public key infrastructure is a concept that enables to verify if the transmission to the sender using the public key to encrypt the message has not been altered. Cybercriminals are everywhere and so we want to make sure that our message has been delivered to the right sender using a trusted party called a “certification authority” who establish the integrity and ownership of a public key. Public key infrastructure consists of encrypting a message with your public and decrypt a message with the public key.
These documents review Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). In asymmetric-key cryptography, information encrypted with a public key can be decrypted with the corresponding private key. If done properly, this can protect the confidentiality of that information. Alternatively, information encrypted with a private key can be decrypted with a public key. This can be used to confirm that the information was created by the party with the private key. Issues with this setup arise if the party using the public key can’t be confident that the public key is the correct, unaltered public key associated with the legitimate private key. The trusted Certificate Authority (CA) can confirm the identity of the private key owner and send the hash needed to confirm that the public key is correct. The CA encrypts the hash with its own private key, verifying that the hash came from the CA.
The first article describes the typical Public-key cryptography (asymmetric cryptography) that we have discussed in class the past two semesters. Evolving on this, A PKI has added a trusted third party to establish the integrity & ownership of a public key, called a Certification Authority (CA). To achieve its goals, a CA issues encrypted binary certificates that state the identity of the certificate subject and bind that identity to the public key contained in the certificate. The CA signs the certificate by using its private key. It issues the corresponding public key to all interested parties in a self-signed CA certificate. The article then uses an example with the introduction of CA. The certificate signing process allows a user to verify that the public key was not tampered with during transit. To do so, a CA hashes its contents before issuing a certificate, encrypts the hash with its own private key, and includes the encrypted hash in the encrypted certificate. The user verifies the certificate contents by decrypting the hash with the CA public key, performing a separate hash of the certificate’s contents, and then comparing the two hashes. By doing so the user can determine the certificate’s public key has not been altered if they match. The article then lists the typical elements of a PKI; Certification Authority, Registration Authority, Certificate Database, Certificate Store, & Key Archival Server. Similarly, the second article simply lists the typical Microsoft PKI elements; Certification Authorities, Certificate Directory, & the Key Recovery Server.
As the public key concerns have been raised, PKI establishes integrity and ownership of a public key. The first article mentions the certificate signing process that helps users to verify the public key. When CA hashes the contents and encrypts the hash, the user can verify the certificate contents by decrypting the has with CA public key.
Since public keys have public and private key pairs to encrypt and decrypt, the keys are mathematically related. What X.509 does is identify the requirements for robust public-key certificates that are issued by CA.
These articles speak about the public key infrastructure. The main point I took is that there is a more updated and secure concept to encrypting an email. There is a trusted 3rd party that can establish the integrity and ownership of a public key. The trusted 3rd party is called a certification authority (CA) and they issue the public and private key to the individual’s that want to send out the message. It is a little more complicated but, in the end, it does provide more security to both parties who are emailing with each other.
Hashing validates the integrity of a message and is critical to public key infrastructure. In the context of certificate authorities (CA), message contents are hashed and encrypted using the CA’s private key, and included along with the encrypted message. The recipient validates the message integrity by decrypting the message with the CA’s public key, running the contents through the same hash, and then comparing the hashes. If the hashes match, the integrity of the message is verified.
Certificate authorities are responsible for verifying the identity of covered entities. The use of hashing helps establish the integrity of this process and provides the underpinnings of trust across networks and the internet.
Public key encryption, or public key cryptography, is a method of encrypting data with two different keys and making one of the keys, the public key, available for anyone to use. The other key is known as the private key. Data encrypted with the public key can only be decrypted with the private key, and data encrypted with the private key can only be decrypted with the public key. Public key encryption is also known as asymmetric encryption. It is widely used, especially for TLS/SSL, which makes HTTPS possible.
A server that issues certificates for a particular CA. The certificate server software provides customizable services for issuing and managing certificates used in security systems that employ public key cryptography.
This article explains the public key (PKI) infrastructure and how it works. The basic structure of PKI is a certificate authority, a registration authority, a certificate database, a certificate store, and a key archive server. The certificate authority hashes the information, and the private key encrypts the hash. Ensuring the secrecy of the private key is the main way to prevent information leakage. An X.509 public key certificate binds a public key to a signed data structure of an individual, computer or organization, allowing everyone who secures public key communications to rely on the CA to adequately authenticate the party that issued the certificate.
In addition, The certificate key size or length determines the strength of the public key protection, which means that if 2048 bit RSA key is employed in the SSL certs, then it provides sufficient cryptography security to keep information secure from malicious hackers preventing the possibilities of breaking the cryptography algorithm.
X.509 gives trust to individuals, organizations, and devices to establish connections over the network in this digitalized world. It is used everywhere such as to accessing websites, web applications, online transactions, online documents, etc. due to this certificate we can trust that it is safe to perform secure online activities.
This reading explains the encryption key concept and how a concern is one cannot know with certainty that the key they used for encryption actually belonged to the correct person. It is possible that another party monitoring the communication channel between parties substituted a different key.
The reading then explains how certification authority CA, addressed this concern by issuing signed encrypted binary certificates that affirm the identity of the certificate subject and bind that identity to the public key contained in the certificate. The CA signs the certificate by using its private key. It issues the corresponding public key to all interested parties in a self-signed CA certificate.
What I also find interesting is that Certificate Authorities have to be deemed trustworthy. Technically, anybody can become their own certificate authority and issue out their own certificates. To me the question becomes how we trust certificate authorities and when is it beneficial to self-sign instead of use a CA?
The reading discusses how the certificate authority addressed a flaw in securing communications within asymmetric-key cryptography. In regards to asymmetric-key cryptography, the sender cannot know with absolute certainty that the key they used to encrypt the message actually belonged to the intended receiver. The introduction of public key infrastructure (pki) allows a trusted third party (i.e. the certificate authority) to establish the integrity and ownership of a public key by issuing signed binary certificates to the sender and receiver. The pki process enables the receiver to verify that the public key was not tampered with or corrupted during transit and if the next set of hashes introduced by pki match, the receiver can gain greater assurance that the message is in fact legitimate.
Public key infrastructure is facilitated by a certification authority (CA) and used to establish the integrity and ownership of a public key. Their responsibility is to affirm the identity of the certificate subject and bind that identity to the public key contained in the certificate. Although not mentioned, it is also the CAs duty to refer to the certificate revocation list, a list of digital certificates that have been revoked before their scheduled expiration date, to distinguish invalid and untrusted certificates from valid trusted ones. I am also curious to learn about whether man-in-the-middle attacks can affect the reliability or integrity of the certificate signing process.
X.509 is one of the standard formats for public key certificates and is used to secure digital document transfer over the network. It uses cryptographic key pairs with the identities of websites, individuals, or organizations. X.509 certificates include SSL (Secure Socket Layer)/TLS (Transfer Layer Security) and HTTPS for authenticated or encrypted web browsing. It is the most popular certificate standard to manage identity and security in internet communications and computer networking. It defines the format of PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) certificate which uses the private and public keys to encrypt and decrypt messages, ensuring the identity of the sender and receiver of messages.
X.509 certificate issued by Certificate Authority (CA) after the verification of the identity of the requester. The certificate user can be confident that the certificate owner or hostname domain name has been validated. X.509 certificate includes detailed information identifying who’s issued the certificate and which certificate authority issued it. The standard fields include various files such as version, serial number, algorithm information, issuer name, the validity period of the certificate, and the subject public key information Serial number – the unique serial number issued by the certificate authority to each to as an identifier.
The most common algorithms used to create public keys are.
• Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA)
• Elliptic curve cryptography (ECC)
• Digital signature algorithm (DSA)
This explains the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) encryption concept which consists of some key hardware and software elements and a trusted third-party certification authority (CA), certificate database, and registration authority.
The infrastructure provides integrity and ownership of certificates which ensure a secure communication medium between parties over the internet. Individuals, systems, and other public entities rely on CA’s to verify the identities of the request key, assign certificates, and store the certificate in a database.
The knowledge here is to verify before issuing a certificate, the CA hashes the contents, signs (encrypts) the hash by using the required private key, and includes the encrypted hash in the issued certificate. Then verifies the certificate contents by decrypting the hash with the CA public key, performing a separate hash of the certificate contents, and comparing the two hashes. If they match, It means the integrity has be proven certain that the certificate and the public key it contains have not been altered
Hi Oluwaseun,
I want to say CAs manage the lifecycle and validation of issued certificates, and PKI certificates are communicated securely and with integrity. PKI provides a standard framework for encryption and data communication, which allows the PKI core to establish trust between clients, servers, and CAs.
The use of a public key infrastructure helps in verifying that the public keys really belong to the individuals that claim they do. Adding these additional safeguards with the use of Certificate Authorities contribute to the confidentiality of communication. If an individual can further ensure that the public key, they are encrypting their communication with can only be decrypted by the intended individual they wish to send the communications to, then this solves a problem of encrypting communication with the wrong key. However, in this infrastructure presents a new problem. The certificate authorities that verify the identities of individuals they issue certificates for need to be under extremely tight security. If it became that one of these authorities was compromised and they issued false certificates, it would cause a great deal of damage, and could be very difficult to detect. The use of CAs are a necessary tool in PKI but it creates a bottleneck in terms of security.
An important concept I learned from this reading is being able to recognize what the role is of a certificate authority in public-key infrastructure. The CA puts out a signed digital certificate containing its public key. When the sender wants to send the encrypted message to the receiver, the sender must encrypt the message with the receiver’s public key so that the receiver will be able to decrypt the message. The receiver then sends their public key to the sender as well as the CA, and the CA adds the public key to the CA’s digital certificate, and sends that to the sender. The public key is then verified by the sender by comparing the public keys sent by the receiver and the CA. This ensures that the message was not tampered with by a third party.
This topic came up a couple of weeks ago for me for Certificate Authorities and the misunderstanding between them. There is an organization who thinks that self-signing is automatically a vulnerability and doesn’t want to issue their own certificates and place them under their authority. A common misconception is that you SHOULD NOT self-sign a certificate under the context of connecting to multiple external networks because the end user cannot prove that you are trusted or not. Because you aren’t published publicly. However, an organization can become their own certificate authorities if assets remain local and isolated within their enclave. Because they know that they are the trustee and can issue the certificates to their own equipment.
The X.509 certificates are robust public key certificates that are based on International Telecommunication Union X.509 standard. These certificates are used to identify and security in internet communication and computer networking. There are 3 versions for X.509 standard. The benefits of these certificates are trust and scalability.
Public key infrastructure (PKI) is a framework of programs, procedures, communication protocols, and public key cryptography that enables people to communicate in a secure and predictable fashion. It is the process of managing practically every aspect of digital certificates. This covers the policies, procedures, the hardware and the software behind digital certificates, as well as the entire digital certificate process.
Digital Certificate Process:
-Create
-Distribute
-Manage
-Store
-Revoke
Hi Joshua,
Good post! This concept consists of making sure that your message has not been altered during transmission and this is done by a trusted party called a certification of authority who verifies the identity by “signing binary certificates that affirm the identity of the certificate subject and bind that identity to the public key contained in the certificate”
Hey Ornella, thank you for the insight. Sound like integrity is a top priority based off of your response. However, confidentiality also seems to be of concern as well.
Public key infrastructure is a concept that enables to verify if the transmission to the sender using the public key to encrypt the message has not been altered. Cybercriminals are everywhere and so we want to make sure that our message has been delivered to the right sender using a trusted party called a “certification authority” who establish the integrity and ownership of a public key. Public key infrastructure consists of encrypting a message with your public and decrypt a message with the public key.
These documents review Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). In asymmetric-key cryptography, information encrypted with a public key can be decrypted with the corresponding private key. If done properly, this can protect the confidentiality of that information. Alternatively, information encrypted with a private key can be decrypted with a public key. This can be used to confirm that the information was created by the party with the private key. Issues with this setup arise if the party using the public key can’t be confident that the public key is the correct, unaltered public key associated with the legitimate private key. The trusted Certificate Authority (CA) can confirm the identity of the private key owner and send the hash needed to confirm that the public key is correct. The CA encrypts the hash with its own private key, verifying that the hash came from the CA.
The first article describes the typical Public-key cryptography (asymmetric cryptography) that we have discussed in class the past two semesters. Evolving on this, A PKI has added a trusted third party to establish the integrity & ownership of a public key, called a Certification Authority (CA). To achieve its goals, a CA issues encrypted binary certificates that state the identity of the certificate subject and bind that identity to the public key contained in the certificate. The CA signs the certificate by using its private key. It issues the corresponding public key to all interested parties in a self-signed CA certificate. The article then uses an example with the introduction of CA. The certificate signing process allows a user to verify that the public key was not tampered with during transit. To do so, a CA hashes its contents before issuing a certificate, encrypts the hash with its own private key, and includes the encrypted hash in the encrypted certificate. The user verifies the certificate contents by decrypting the hash with the CA public key, performing a separate hash of the certificate’s contents, and then comparing the two hashes. By doing so the user can determine the certificate’s public key has not been altered if they match. The article then lists the typical elements of a PKI; Certification Authority, Registration Authority, Certificate Database, Certificate Store, & Key Archival Server. Similarly, the second article simply lists the typical Microsoft PKI elements; Certification Authorities, Certificate Directory, & the Key Recovery Server.
As the public key concerns have been raised, PKI establishes integrity and ownership of a public key. The first article mentions the certificate signing process that helps users to verify the public key. When CA hashes the contents and encrypts the hash, the user can verify the certificate contents by decrypting the has with CA public key.
Since public keys have public and private key pairs to encrypt and decrypt, the keys are mathematically related. What X.509 does is identify the requirements for robust public-key certificates that are issued by CA.