Digital Certificate Management Basics
A digital certificate management system is a program designed for use by network administrators to keep track of multiple digital certificates in an organized fashion. The key is to be able to view them all, quickly, easily, securely, reliably, and cost effectively. The whole purpose is to get full control of all certificates, identifying exactly what is important, and focusing all management efforts on ensuring they always stay up and running, never out of date, and are never compromised. At times, though, digital certificate management can be seen as a low-maintenance job, because depending on how often your certificates expire, you might only need to concern yourself with...
This automation allows for easier auditing of certificates. By removing the tedious process of manually auditing them, as well as the risks involved in human error, automated digital certificate management removes a lot of the human error that tends to go into management of certificates. Also, automation removes the possibility of a downtime of a large magnitude that will last months or longer.
With this highly efficient method, a business case is made to determine which type of automation would best suit their needs. In the most basic form of digital certificate management, the certificate approval process is handled by a centralized approval server. The server serves as the middleman for the entire chain of certificates. This process is, of course, the most simplified form.
An advanced form of digital certificate management uses what are called issuer enrollment servers. These servers allow for the management of multiple issuing certificates without requiring manual intervention. The way it works is that the issuing certificates are placed on the servers, which are then controlled by the issuing certificate authorities. Once a request is placed, the server requests for information from the CA database, and the CA database verifies the request.
A number of businesses make use of what are called CA networks. These networks work by locating and contacting CA authorities across the globe. Once these authorities agree to certify digital certificates for a particular business, they become members in the CA network. When a request comes into the digital certificate management system, it is matched with a CA in the CA network and the request is assigned to them for processing.
In more complex terms, the certificates issued by the digital certificate management system do not need to be stored on servers at all. Instead, they can be stored on data files, which are referred to as PKI databases. There are two types of PKI databases. The first type is the centralized database system, which maintains PGP keys, public keys, DSS keys and digital certificates for an international community.
The second type is called server side storage, or SLAS. An example of a digital certificate management database is the nebulacert. It is a non-relational database used by a PGP key manager to maintain information about each PGP key that has been added, modified or deleted. startup is used by the financial institutions, for instance, to make sure that the various users of the digital certificates that they issue do not have the same private key. Another example is the international merchant bank chain. It maintains a central database that allows multiple countries to add and delete certificates as they choose.
startup is also a major issue in the digital certificates arena today. There are a number of issues that need to be considered when setting up the digital certificates lifecycle. The issues include identifying the threats to the digital certificates, defining the security posture, creating a management protocol, creating policies and procedures and testing the processes. Most IT professionals and a large number of enterprise customers have not yet properly considered the security posture of their certificates and how it affects the performance and the security of the business.