What is Certificate authority?
Certificate authority Definition: An entity trusted by one or more users as an authority that issues, revokes, and manages digital certificates tof bind individuals and entities to their public keys.
Understanding Certificate authority
An entity trusted by one or more users as an authority that issues, revokes, and manages digital certificates that bind individuals and entities to their public keys. The CA acts as a trusted third party that verifies identities and issues digital certificates containing public keys and identity information. CAs maintain certificate revocation lists and provide certificate status checking through protocols like OCSP. CA operations are governed by standards like X.509, WebTrust, and ETSI EN 319 411. Organizations implement CA services through commercial providers, internal PKI deployments, or hybrid approaches according to frameworks like NIST SP 800-32. For example, a large enterprise might maintain an internal CA for issuing employee certificates while relying on external CAs for public-facing web services. Related terms: Public key infrastructure, Digital certificates, Certificate revocation list, Registration authority, X.509, Trust model.