A Certification Authority (CA) is an authority in a trusted agency that issues and manages security credentials and public keys for message encryption. As part of a public key infrastructure, a CA checks with a Registration Authority (RA) to verify information provided by the requestor of a digital certificate. If the RA verifies the requestor's information, the CA can then issue a certificate. The certificate includes the owner's public key, the expiration date of the certificate, the owner's name, and other information about the public key owner. This Certification Authority is also known as a Trusted Third Party (TTP), since it is regarded that, in order to be trusted, it should not have common interests with any of the two parties.
The CA will
Issue certificates by binding the identity of a user or system to a public key with a digital signature.
Schedules expiry dates for certificates.
Ensures that the certificates are revoked or suspended.
Publishes Certificate Revocation Lists (CRL's)
A Registration Authority (RA) is an authority in a network that verifies user requests for a digital certificate and tells the certification authority (CA) to issue it.
An RA provides the interface between the end entity (user) and the CA. It verifies the identity of the users and submits the certificate request to the CA.
For registration process and other certificate management requests, click continue.