Public Key Infrastructure FAQs

     Digital Certificates FAQs

• What are personal certificates?
  
  Personal certificates serve to identify a person. It follows that the contents of this type of certificate include the full name and personal particulars of an individual. Among other uses of personal certificates some are: Secure e-mail correspondence and enhanced access control to sensitive or valuable information.

• What are server certificates?
  
  Server certificates identify a server (computer). Hence, instead of a name of a person, server certificates contain the host name e.g. www.mtnltrustline.com. Server certificates are used to ensure that on-line transactions are secure.

• How are digital certificates issued?
  
  Figure illustrates the certificate request and issuance process by a CA:

The certificate applicant must generate his/ her own key pair and send the public key to the CA with some proof of his/ her identification.

The CA will put the public key in a new certificate, digitally sign the certificate using its private key and then send the certificate to the applicant.

Note: The CA will check the certificate applicant's identification before it generates the certificate and signs the request. Different CAs may issue certificates with varying levels of identification requirements. One CA may insist on seeing the Identity card, another may want a signed letter authorizing certification from anyone requesting a certificate.

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