DCM concepts

 

Before you start using digital certificates to enhance your system and network security policy, you need to understand what they are and what security benefits they provide.

A digital certificate is a digital credential that validates the identity of the certificate's owner, much as a passport does. The identification information that a digital certificate provides is known as the subject distinguished name. A trusted party, called a Certificate Authority (CA), issues digital certificates to users or to organizations. The trust in the CA is the foundation of trust in the certificate as a valid credential.

A digital certificate also contains a public key which is part of a public-private key pair. A variety of security functions rely on the use of digital certificates and their associated key pairs. You can use digital certificates to configure Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) sessions to ensure private, secure communication sessions between users and your server applications. You can extend this security by configuring many SSL-enabled applications to require certificates instead of user names and passwords for more secure user authentication.

To learn more about digital certificate concepts, review these topics:

 

Parent topic:

Digital Certificate Manager (DCM)