KNOW-HOW
Benefits in Certificate Usage
Asymmetric signatures rely on fingerprints that are signed with private keys. With the public key of the signatory, anybody can check whether the signature is valid and whether it matches the fingerprint. But where to
get the public key of the signatory? And how can we be certain that it is really authentic? Certificates are the
answer, especially if there are more possible signatories with unique pairs of keys.
What Are Certificates?
Suppose your company wants to start signing
its emails to reassure your business partners
that they are receiving genuine emails that have
not been tampered with. All of your people
are given a pair of keys – but how can all of
your business partners receive all of the public
keys of all of your employees? It is virtually
impossible. The only option is to have a central
authority sign the public keys in conjunction
with the data of the employees who possess
them, i.e. their email addresses and n