Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Security Handbook

Certificate Authorities

Before you learn the actual generation of a certificate, you need to learn the concept of a Certificate Authority (CA). This topic is a bit like the old "Which came first, the chicken or the egg" conundrum. It is difficult to discuss a CA without first introducing certificates, but it is also difficult to discuss the issuing of a certificate without having introduced the concept of a certificate authority, the source from whence the certificate came. A certificate authority is an entity or service that issues certificates. It sounds simple, but you'll find the first time you attempt to install the server certificate you got from VeriSign that it's not as simple as it sounds.

Note

Do you need VeriSign, CyberTrust, and so ...