Pki Glossary

Browse 32 pki terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.

32 Pki Terms

Certificate
A digital document issued by a Certificate Authority that binds a public key to an identity, enabling encrypted communication and authentication. X.509...
Certificate Authority
A trusted entity that issues digital certificates, verifying that the holder of a certificate is who they claim to be. The trust anchors of HTTPS — when a CA...
Certificate Chain
The ordered set of certificates linking an end-entity certificate back to a trusted root through one or more intermediate issuers. Correct certificate chains...
Certificate Lifecycle
The full process of issuing, deploying, rotating, renewing, revoking, and retiring certificates over time. Certificate lifecycle failures often cause outages...
Certificate Management
The administration of digital certificates, including issuance, storage, deployment, renewal, revocation, and inventory. Poor certificate management creates...
Certificate Pinning
Certificate Pinning is a trust strategy that restricts which certificate or public key a client will accept for a service. Security teams use it to enforce...
Certificate Revocation
The invalidation of a certificate before its normal expiration, usually because the private key was compromised, the certificate was misissued, or the subject...
Certificate Signing Request
A message generated by an entity seeking a certificate, containing identifying information and a public key for the certificate authority to sign. The CSR is a...
Certificate Transparency
A system of public, append-only logs that record all TLS certificates issued by certificate authorities. Enables domain owners to detect unauthorized...
Chain of Trust
A security model where each component or stage is validated by a trusted predecessor, creating a sequence of verified trust from a root. It appears in secure...
Client Certificate
A digital certificate presented by a client to authenticate itself to a server, most commonly in mutual TLS setups. Client certificates are often used in...
CSR
Short for certificate signing request in security contexts, the message containing identifying information and a public key that is submitted to a certificate...
DANE
DANE is a DNSSEC-backed mechanism that binds TLS certificates or public keys to DNS records for a domain. Security teams use it to enforce trust, reduce...
Derived Credential
A credential generated from an existing trusted identity source, often by deriving a new certificate or authenticator for a different device such as a mobile...
Digital Certificate
Digital Certificate is a signed data structure that binds an identity to a public key for trust decisions. Security teams use it to enforce trust, reduce...
DNSSEC
Short for Domain Name System Security Extensions, a set of DNS protocol additions that let resolvers verify that DNS data was signed by the correct zone and...
GnuPG
GnuPG is an open-source implementation of OpenPGP used for encryption, signing, and key management workflows. Security teams use it to enforce trust, reduce...
Key Server
A server that stores, distributes, or helps manage cryptographic public keys and related trust information. Key servers appear in systems such as PGP...
Let's Encrypt
Let's Encrypt is a public certificate authority that automates issuance and renewal of domain-validated TLS certificates. Security teams use it to enforce...
Multi-Domain Certificate
A digital certificate that covers more than one domain name, usually by listing multiple subject alternative names in the certificate. Multi-domain...
Mutual TLS
Mutual TLS is a TLS mode in which both client and server present certificates and authenticate each other. Security teams use it to enforce trust, reduce...
OCSP
OCSP is the online certificate status protocol used to check whether a certificate has been revoked. Security teams use it to enforce trust, reduce exposure,...
OCSP Stapling
OCSP Stapling is a TLS optimization where the server includes a recent signed OCSP response during the handshake. Security teams use it to enforce trust,...
Offline Root CA
A root certificate authority kept disconnected from networks except during tightly controlled signing operations so the highest-trust private key is harder to...
Pem File
A text-based container format commonly used to store certificates, private keys, and related cryptographic material. It shows up in application security,...
PGP
Pretty Good Privacy, a system for encrypting and signing data and email with public key cryptography. It shows up in application security, identity,...
PKCS
Public-Key Cryptography Standards, a family of specifications covering common cryptographic formats and operations. It shows up in application security,...
PKI Certificate
A digital certificate issued within a public key infrastructure to bind an identity to a public key. It shows up in application security, identity,...
Private CA
A certificate authority operated internally by an organization rather than by a public commercial CA, used to issue certificates for internal services,...
Public Certificate
A certificate issued by a publicly trusted certificate authority so standard browsers and clients will accept it without custom trust configuration. Public...
Root Certificate
A self-signed top-level certificate trusted as the anchor for a certificate chain. It shows up in application security, identity, infrastructure, or incident...
X.509
The standard format that defines the structure of digital certificates used in PKI and TLS. It shows up in application security, identity, infrastructure, or...

Related Topics