In order to use public key cryptography, as well as generate your own digital certificates, you will require a certification authority (CA) system. This type of system is one which is designed where the digital certificates created are able to be trusted, both internally at your organization, as well as by external users. For instance, a bank or financial institution could create and issue their own digital certificates for their customers to use anytime they are connecting to online banking features. In this case, the bank would issue a digital certificate containing a public key to each customer, and retain the matching digital certificate with their private key. Whenever a customer connects to online banking, their digital certificate is authenticated against the bank’s certificate.
Obtain Your Certification Authority System from a Trusted Provider
A certification authority (CA) system is not something a company can just create on their own through internal projects. A CA system is developed, created and made available to businesses by a trusted third party. This is done to ensure that both the business and the intended recipients of the digital certificates are able to trust they are valid. While this is not necessarily an issue when the certificates are only used internally, it may become one in situations where the certificates are used publically. In most cases, the third party CA system provider has been approved as a trusted party from whom to obtain your CA system by regulatory and government agencies, both in the United States, as well as internationally.