Affiliation:
1. University of Arkansas at Little Rock, USA
Abstract
Electronic forms of communications are becoming increasingly pervasive. The Internet links not only senders and receivers of e-mail, but also consumers to suppliers, businesses to businesses, citizens to governments, and so forth. The potential for communications to be intercepted, hijacked, emulated, or otherwise manipulated for nefarious purposes is an area of grave concern. The security of message traffic relies heavily upon encryption. Encryption relies upon keys. Public key infrastructure (PKI) addresses keys – how they are used, how they are exchanged, and how they are validated. Furthermore, public key cryptography provides confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation. In general, PKI is a broad subject matter and is constantly evolving to meet the rapid growth in today’s information world. This chapter is intended to reveal the mystery, and perhaps misconceptions, of the PKI as well as offering readers a broad high-level view of the PKI.
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