You must be aware that the SSL certificate for your website makes it secure and keeps it beyond the reach of hackers. But are you aware of this certificate and its decryption and encryption functionality? It will become relatively easy to understand the working when you have an idea of all these things.
SSL certificates use public key infrastructure (PKI) to authenticate the website and encrypt the information shared on the site.
What is PKI?
Public Key Infrastructure or PKI is a security framework that enables users and servers to exchange information securely over the internet using public-key cryptography. PKI framework uses two different cryptographic keys, namely, a public key and a private key, for its working. The framework distributes the public key to any user who visits your website. When a connection between your website and a user is established, a private key is kept secret. The user uses a public key to decrypt or encrypt the data during communication, while the server only uses a private key. This process maintains the user information safe from any attack from hackers.
To protect your website from hackers, you should buy an SSL certificate at an affordable price from any certificate authority. Many trusted certificate authorities (CA) can provide inexpensive SSL certificates, which managed PKI can use to authenticate your website. It can ensure encrypted information is shared between your server and the user.
Key Components of PKI
You need to know about the main components of PKI to understand how public key infrastructure works.
Digital Certificate: Third-party certificate authorities (CA) issue digital certificates. These certificates have information about the owner, their key, and the digital signatures of the CA. Code signing certificates, SSL certificates, document signing certificates are typical examples of digital certificates.
Certificate Authority(CA): CA’s verify the authenticity of an organization by the certificate authority (CA), and it issues the certificates. The whole PKI system relies on certificate authorities (CA). Without CAs, no one can give a certificate to themselves, and the PKI structure would not work.
Public and Private Key: PKI uses a pair of keys to the decryption and encryption of data. In the case of symmetric encryption, only one key is used for communication by both the server and the client. However, in asymmetric encryption, a public and a private key are used. The public key is shared between the server and the user during communication. On the other hand, the private key is kept confidential and secret.
Trust Chain: The trust chain comprises root, intermediate, and leaf certificates which connect back with the issuing certifying authority who signed on it.
Working of Public key infrastructure
PKI works by authenticating the server and the client visiting your website through digital certificates using asymmetric encryption. The following steps perform the authentication process:
The user’s web client connects to your webserver to get the public key and website’s certificate.
The WebClient will use a chain of trust and store of trusted root certificates to check whether a trusted certificate authority issued the server’s license or not.
The client sends information using the certificate’s public key. If the server can decrypt the data, it is confirmed that the user is connecting to the correct server.
PKI offers you the facility to apply digital signatures to your email, software, etc. The certificate authority’s private key is used for signing every digital certificate. Thus, PKI ensures that the information comes from an authentic source and has not been changed.
How PKI Secures Your Organization?
If you are running an online business, you must keep your website secure and away from the reach of hackers and scammers. Are you aware of how PKI secures your organization and its valuable information? PKI enables your organization to:
Secure the information transferred from and to your website. Thus, when users visit your site, they feel comfortable and safe sharing their private information on your secured site. This makes your website achieve higher ranks on Google or other search engines.
- Help reduce phishing scams and other email-based information leakages by digitally signing or encrypting email communications.
- Digitally sign documents, ensuring that the files are actual and have not been tampered with.
- Monitor some action that a user or application may carry out in particular systems.
- Sign your software digitally, thereby indicating the integrity of your software.
- Be assured of your communications and data accuracy by a reputable third party.
Bottom Line
Cybercrimes are increasing daily. Hackers are coming up with new strategies and tricks to retrieve sensitive information from users visiting your site or website. Thus, it would be best to stay updated about these scams and ways of protection and also PPC advertising
Public key infrastructure for organizations and businesses, irrespective of their size and scale, is increasingly becoming the hallmark of cybersecurity. PKI is here for you to secure your website and user’s information on your site, thereby protecting your data’s reliability. It makes the verification possible by getting your authority checked by a trusted third party. Hence, for these reasons, you must know how the PKI system works to keep running your online business safely.
