What are Certificate Authorities (CA) in Cyber Security?

Certificate Authorities (CA) are an integral part of the Public Key Infrastructure, commonly known as PKI, and are a vital component of cyber security. They are akin to driving license authorities in the physical realm, but in the digital world, they validate corporate identification by authenticating the website, devices, and individuals before issuing any digital security certificate.

Fundamentals of Certificate Authority(CA)

Certificate Authorities are considered trusted third parties that issue digital security certificates such as code signing certificates, SSL or TLS certificates, email signing certificates, and much more. They administer public keys and other credentials for data encryption mechanisms, validate details of requesting parties such as websites, email addresses, companies, and others, and bind them to cryptographic keys.

Also, CAs verify the identity of individuals or businesses requesting a security certificate by checking the information supplied by the applicant with the Qualified Information Source (QIS) to authenticate its legitimacy, and upon successful validation, only issue the digital security certificates to them.

The Role of Certificate Authorities in Cyber Security

Certificate Authorities, or CAs, play a very important role in shaping the cyber security infrastructure highlighted as per the below key points:

1. Validation and Verification of business organizations, domain names, and identities.
2. Issuing digital security certificates to requesting entities like individuals or business organizations.
3. Establishing a "Chain of Trust" a hierarchical trust model for SSL security that consists of the root certificate authority, Intermediate Certificate, and Applicant certificate.
4. Act as a "Trust Anchor," also called the root CA in the chain of trust hierarchy.
5. Strengthening the trust factor between interacting parties over the web.
6. Maintain a list of Certificate Revocations within its database.

Which Digital Security Certificates are offered by Certificate Authorities?

As discussed, Certificate Authorities (CAs) are empowered to issue various types of digital security certificates that help implement strong data and information security measures against various cyber threats.

Let's take a closer look at the different types of digital security certificates offered by Certificate Authorities around the globe:

1. Code Signing Certificates

A code signing certificate is a digital certificate offered by trusted certificate authorities that is used to digitally sign the code of the software, apps, and other executables that help a system verify its authenticity and validate the publisher source to be trusted by users. CAs employ a PKI infrastructure in which the developers sign the code using a private key that they keep private while the end-user uses the public key to verify the developer's identity.

Certificate Authorities offer various Types of Code Signing Certificates that are categorized as per their validation level, security features, and user requirements, such as;

Individual Code Signing Certificates are appropriate for solo developers, Organization Validation (OV) Code Signing Certificates are suitable for small to medium-scale software entities.

Lastly, the Extended Validation (EV) Code Signing Certificates are a perfect match for enterprise business organizations since they ensure the highest level of software security and build fast user trust for the signed software.

2. SSL Certificates

SSL Certificates (Secure Sockets Layer Certificates), now commonly known as TLS Certificates (Transport Layer Security Certificates), are digital certificates that establish a secure encrypted connection using an HTTPS protocol that enables secure communication between the website and the user browser, ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of data and preventing unauthorized persons from intercepting the data during the transmission process.

Reputed certificate authorities like Sectigo, Certera, etc. are authorized to issue SSL certificates available in different types based on their validation level, such as Domain Validation (DV) SSL, Organization Validation (OV) SSL, and Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificates.

Moreover, CAs also issue SSL certificates based on their domain security coverage like Single Domain SSL Certificate, Multi Domain SSL, Wildcard SSL Certificates and Multi Domain Wildcard SSL Certificates.

3. Email Signing Certificates

Emails serve a vital part in our lives, and having an email digital signature certificate or email signing certificate elevates email security. It is a PKI-based S/MIME certificate that allows you to sign and encrypt email messages digitally.

It uses asymmetric encryption keys to encrypt and decrypt email messages and attachments. The email signing certificate assures the security of emails in transit or at rest. The hashing function in an email signature notifies the recipient if it has been modified or not.

4. Object Signing Certificates

Object Signing Certificates issued by CAs are used to digitally sign a wide range of objects, including those in the Integrated file system to verify their integrity and ownership. The receiver of the signed object must have access to the corresponding certificate for the object signature to be properly authenticated.

5. User or Client Certificates

User or Client Certificates are used to authenticate the identity of the user or clients that own the certificate. Digital applications primarily use them to validate users using a certificate rather than a username and password combination. CAs have finally started to offer such certificates for users to authenticate themselves and gain quick access to apps.

Conclusion

To sum up, Certificate Authorities (CAs) play a very crucial role in the world of cyber security, by following a chain of trust hierarchy mechanism to ensure website operators and users on the web are protected from cyber threats or attacks. and also responsible for issuing different digital security certificates to businesses and individuals to strengthen their IT security infrastructure.