Microsoft® Windows® Security: Essentials

Chapter 11

Understanding Certificates and a PKI

A Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) includes all the pieces required to issue, use, and manage certificates. Certificates (also called public key certificates) are used for a wide variety of purposes to provide different types of security. For example, certificates are used to digitally sign and encrypt email, as mentioned in Chapter 10, “Enforcing Confidentiality with Encryption.”

The certificate includes details about who issued it, who it was issued to, and when it expires, as well as unique data such as a public key and a serial number. Because the certificate can be used to provide security assurances, it’s checked each time it’s used to ensure that the certificate hasn’t expired, wasn’t tampered ...