CA, what is it?

[PrinceTin]

I am most familiar with SSL certificates, but now I have run across the term CA certificate. I was wondering what it is and if it has any relationship to a SSL certificate?

[WHUKSam]

Hello,


A Certificate Authority (CA) is a trusted central administrative entity that can issue digital certificates to users and servers. The trust in the CA is the foundation of trust in the certificate as a valid credential. A CA uses its private key to create a digital signature on the certificate that it issues to validate the certificate's origin. Others can use the CA certificate's public key to verify the authenticity of the certificates that the CA issues and signs.

[jumpingspidermedia]

In cryptography, a certificate authority or certification authority (CA) is an entity that issues digital certificates. The digital certificate certifies the ownership of a public key by the named subject of the certificate. This allows others (relying parties) to rely upon signatures or assertions made by the private key that corresponds to the public key that is certified. In this model of trust relationships, a CA is a trusted third party that is trusted by both the subject (owner) of the certificate and the party relying upon the certificate. CAs are characteristic of many public key infrastructure (PKI) schemes.

[hillaryjohnson]

A certificate authority (CA) is an authority in a network that issues and manages security credentials and public keys for message encryption. As part of a public key infrastructure (PKI), a CA checks with a registration authority (RA) to verify information provided by the requestor of a digital certificate. If the RA verifies the requestor's information, the CA can then issue a certificate.


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SSL Certificates