Overview of PKI

Definition

Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) provides certificate management in compliance with certain standards. It uses public keys to provide security service for all network applications. PKI is the core of information security and basis of e-commerce.

Purpose

As the network and information technologies develop, e-commerce is widely used and accepted. However, e-commerce has the following problems:

• The transaction parties cannot verify the identities of each other.

• Data may be eavesdropped and tampered with during transmission. Information is not secure.

• No paper receipt is used in transaction, making arbitration difficult.

PKI uses public keys to implement identity verification, confidentiality, data integrity, and non-repudiation of transactions. Therefore, PKI is widely used in network communication and transactions, especially e-government and e-commerce.

Benefits

• Benefits to users
  • Certificate authentication allows users to authenticate network devices to which they connect, ensuring that users connect to secure and legal networks.
  • Cryptography protects data against tampering and eavesdropping, ensuring data privacy.
  • Digital signature ensures that data is accessible to only authorized devices and users, ensuring data security.
• Benefits to enterprises
  • PKI prevents unauthorized users from connecting to enterprise networks.
  • PKI establishes secure connections between enterprise branches to ensure data security.