What Is a Public Key Certificate?

In this day and age, communicating through the internet and through networks of computers are a common thing in the company or business setting. And now, more than ever, the danger of sensitive communications falling into the wrong hands exists. This is where the public key certificate comes in.

To protect data sent across networks or the web, encryption keys have been incorporated to messages through the use of a public key infrastructure which involves the public key certificate. A public key certificate or a modern certificate is a form of electronic document that contains information regarding the identity of the sender or owner along with the digital signature which forms part of the public key.

Public Key Certificate Use

The public key certificate is mainly used in identifying trusted networks and incoming sources of data. The certificate in pdf contains the public key which is then paired with the receiver’s private key pair. Together, the two keys pair to unlock or decrypt a message or file. Since the public key contained in the certificate is known to all, any message or information intended for a specific individual has to be paired with a private key to allow that single individual to get a hold of or decrypt the message that was sent.

The contents of a public certificate include the reference to the issuer, public key of the owner of the certificate, dates of validity of the certificate, and signature of the certificate. A public key can only be extracted after the sender confirms that the Certification of Deposit (CD) is trusted and your certificate is valid and not part of revoked certificates that have been listed. A major distinction that identifies the public key certificate is that it is for public usage. Everybody has access to it. It is therefore important that the private key pair is kept safe and not sent to any unreliable entity.

The Need for a Public Key Certificate

Basically, without the public key certificate, any data or message sent across to a recipient will not be accessible to that intended recipient if that message is encrypted for safe access. Also, note template that the public key certificate alone forms only part of the key which unlocks a decrypted message.

• The sender must access or get your public certificate and process if it can be trusted and if the certificate is not revoked.
• The sender then uses your public key to encrypt the message before sending it.
• Before reaching the recipient, an SSL certificate  from the server has to be granted or given in order to gain access or connection to the server the recipient is in. This additional encryption on the server side, which is standard, adds to the security of the network.
• The recipient, on the other hand, uses his private key paired to the public key to decode or decrypt the message.

Most of the processes mentioned are done by software on the computer. All of which adds up to the basic security architecture applied in the sending and receiving of encrypted email template.