About Certificates

Certificates are used to authenticate a server process or a human user. A certificate authority (CA) is an authority in a network that issues and manages security credentials and public keys for message encryption. As part of a public key infrastructure (PKI), a CA checks with a registration authority to verify information provided by the requestor of a digital certificate. If the registration authority verifies the requestor's information, the CA can then issue a certificate.

A certificate authority (CA) is a third-party organization that verifies the information or the identity of computers on a network and issues digital certificates of authenticity. Digital certificates are used in a network security system to guarantee that the two parties exchanging information are really who they claim to be. Depending on how a network's security system is configured, the certificate can include its owner's public key and name, the expiration date of the certificate, or other information.

Authenticating entities is accomplished through three types of certificates: