X.509In cryptography, X.509 is an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) standard defining the format of public key certificates. X.509 certificates are used in many Internet protocols, including TLS/SSL, which is the basis for HTTPS, the secure protocol for browsing the web. They are also used in offline applications, like electronic signatures. An X.509 certificate binds an identity to a public key using a digital signature. A certificate contains an identity (a hostname, or an organization, or an individual) and a public key (RSA, DSA, ECDSA, ed25519, etc.
Certificate revocation listIn cryptography, a certificate revocation list (or CRL) is "a list of digital certificates that have been revoked by the issuing certificate authority (CA) before their scheduled expiration date and should no longer be trusted". CRLs are no longer required by the CA/Browser forum, as alternate certificate revocation technologies (such as OCSP) are increasingly used instead. Nevertheless, CRLs are still widely used by the CAs.
Public key certificateIn cryptography, a public key certificate, also known as a digital certificate or identity certificate, is an electronic document used to prove the validity of a public key. The certificate includes information about the key, information about the identity of its owner (called the subject), and the digital signature of an entity that has verified the certificate's 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.
Certificate authorityIn cryptography, a certificate authority or certification authority (CA) is an entity that stores, signs, and issues digital certificates. A digital certificate certifies the ownership of a public key by the named subject of the certificate. This allows others (relying parties) to rely upon signatures or on assertions made about the private key that corresponds to the certified public key. A CA acts as a trusted third party—trusted both by the subject (owner) of the certificate and by the party relying upon the certificate.
Certificate policyA certificate policy (CP) is a document which aims to state what are the different entities of a public key infrastructure (PKI), their roles and their duties. This document is published in the PKI perimeter. When in use with X.509 certificates, a specific field can be set to include a link to the associated certificate policy. Thus, during an exchange, any relying party has an access to the assurance level associated with the certificate, and can decide on the level of trust to put in the certificate.
Public key infrastructureA public key infrastructure (PKI) is a set of roles, policies, hardware, software and procedures needed to create, manage, distribute, use, store and revoke digital certificates and manage public-key encryption. The purpose of a PKI is to facilitate the secure electronic transfer of information for a range of network activities such as e-commerce, internet banking and confidential email.
Computer securityComputer security, cyber security, digital security or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attacks by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, theft of, or damage to hardware, software, or data, as well as from the disruption or misdirection of the services they provide. The field is significant due to the expanded reliance on computer systems, the Internet, and wireless network standards such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
VerisignVerisign Inc. is an American company based in Reston, Virginia, United States, that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the , , and generic top-level domains and the country-code top-level domains, and the back-end systems for the and sponsored top-level domains. In 2010, Verisign sold its authentication business unit – which included Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate, public key infrastructure (PKI), Verisign Trust Seal, and Verisign Identity Protection (VIP) services – to Symantec for $1.
