By IT Brew Staff
less than 3 min read
Definition:
Public key infrastructure (PKI) allows an organization’s IT professionals to provide digital identities to not only employees, but also any devices and systems on the network. “Public key” refers to public key cryptography, in which each individual or component on a network has a shared public key (used for encryption) and a unique private key (for decryption).
At the heart of this system are digital certificates used to verify and manage identities. These certificates include the public key, a digital signature of the certificate authority (CA), the distinguished name of the certificate’s owner, and other relevant data. The certificate authority creates and issues the digital certificates, and maintains the security procedures and requirements for anyone or anything possessing a certificate.
PKI also includes a central directory of cryptographic keys, a certificate management system, a well-defined certificate policy, and a registration authority (RA) that can verify the identity of a user or device with a certificate (the CA can also serve as the RA).
For IT professionals tasked with maintaining their organization’s infrastructure, PKI is a key way—pun definitely intended—to secure communications between users and a server, or between users. For example, users sharing highly proprietary information may want this infrastructure in place so they know their messages haven’t been altered or read by an unknown party.
