Public key infrastructure is divided into four major components; certification authorities, registration authorities, repositories and archives. Certificate authority is used to confirm the identities of parties sending and receiving electronic payments, for example using a personal identification number to authenticate electronically. It issues public key certificate for each identity confirming that the appropriate credentials are used and also issue and process certificate revocation lists which have been revoked. Registration authority is an entity trusted by the certification authority to register for the identity of users to a certificate authority. Repository shows active digital certificates for a certification authority system which is used to provide users to confirm their status. An archive is a database of information used to store and protect information. Public key users use it but they do not issue certificates, they depend on the other components of the public key infrastructures to obtain ¬¬certificates and verify …show more content…
X.509 is the most universally supported PKI standard used to define standard digital certificate format. Public key cryptography standards covers areas of certificate enrollment and renewal and certificate revocation lists distribution [2]. Cryptographic message syntax standard, certificate request syntax standard and personal information exchange syntax standard are the most important PKCS standards. Other standards that depend on public key infrastructure are secure multipurpose internet mail extensions for secure messaging, secure sockets layer and transport layer security for providing secure access to web servers as well as non-web applications, secure electronic transactions for secure electronic bank card payment systems and IP security for IP encryption and deploying virtual private networks.
Public Key Infrastructure organization’s strategy focuses on enabling a specific application in order to make proper and productive planning for the next applications since many companies do not have any applications that depend on PKI [2]. Consolidating PKI functions for multiple applications is another strategy that helps with cost savings and management efficiency. Two approaches to Public Key Infrastructure interoperability are focusing on a particular vendor’s product and