PKI refers to the hardware, software, people and policies necessary for creating, managing, distributing, using and revoking digital certificates – offering data and identity security on an enterprise scale.
Each user is provided with two cryptographic keys; a public one for sending information and an individual key that only the owner can decode; this enables a single person to securely send out multiple pieces of information at the same time.
Identity Management
PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) is an infrastructure which binds public keys with identities of entities (people and devices) using various processes, technologies, and policies to secure transmission of data between devices or apps that use PKIs and servers. This ensures only authorized users and systems have access to servers while data transmission between devices or apps stays private and safe.
PKI technology is essential for protecting and securing information that flows between a business’ network and cloud services, and users and devices. PKI helps businesses verify users and devices, encrypt data, digitally sign documents and emails and protect against phishing attacks or any other forms of malicious activity that are difficult to protect against with simple passwords alone.
Key to any security framework is a certificate authority (CA), which authenticates user identities and verifies credentials. Usually this role falls to a dedicated team within an organization who must oversee all stages of certificate lifecycle management, from enrollment and issuance through renewal and revocations with high levels of security and compliance in mind.
PKIs include scalable certificate repositories to facilitate use by apps in an efficient, transparent manner – this enables companies to scale up their infrastructure and accommodate an increasingly remote workforce.
An effective PKI solution should provide methods for protecting and managing certificate data, including validating each certificate’s legitimacy before purging invalid ones. Furthermore, such an approach will assist organizations in automating the discovery of their certificates – where they were issued from and who owns them – easing organizational processes significantly.
To optimize your Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), it’s critical that you implement a robust management platform with centralized certificate administration and visibility/reporting features. This will reduce risk, ensure applications can use certificates consistently and seamlessly, keep your PKI operational without interruption, as well as provide you with a scalable certificate repository capable of accommodating all the apps, devices and users your company requires – providing high uptime, security, interoperability and governance while safeguarding privacy for people, things and data.
Data Encryption
No matter the industry or purpose, businesses rely heavily on data that’s transmitted and stored across networked computers. To protect this private and sensitive information, encryption provides an efficient means to keep it private and safe; by scrambling data into unreadable ciphertext with an associated decryption key only permitted accessing it when needed by authorized users. It provides greater online security while still permitting authorized users access.
PKI’s asymmetric cryptosystems allow end users, devices, services and programs to verify identities and exchange digitally signed and encrypted data across the Internet and within a trusted environment. By employing public/private key pairs with high levels of confidentiality, authentication and integrity for data transmission.
PKIs use digital certificates as an identity proofing measure and to ensure only authorized individuals gain access to relevant information at the right time.
Businesses using this strategy to meet compliance regulations (such as HIPAA and FERPA) while accommodating their growing remote workforce. Furthermore, this helps companies avoid costly non-compliance fines while building consumer confidence – all key ingredients of success in any competitive landscape. Furthermore, it gives firms a competitive edge by showing consumers they prioritize data protection and privacy over other considerations.
Data encryption typically comes in two forms, symmetric and asymmetric. Symmetric encryption uses one key for both encrypting and decrypting, while asymmetric uses two mathematically linked keys known only to their owner; one public and one private. A cryptographic algorithm combines them together into strong key pairs which cannot be cracked using brute force attacks.
Asymmetric cryptosystems such as Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) are ideal for data encryption as they can handle the billions of messages sent each day via email, websites, social media and mobile apps. Furthermore, laws and regulations increasingly mandate encryption as a safeguard against hacking and cybercrime; yet even with optimal security measures these risks cannot be entirely avoided; companies should include data encryption as an integral component of their cybersecurity programs to combat any potential breaches in data protection.
Digital Signatures
Digital signatures use asymmetric cryptography to add an extra layer of validation and security for messages sent over unsecure channels. When properly implemented, digital signatures make it impossible for fraudulent parties to forge messages purporting to originate from someone other than its intended signatory if they gain access to its signing key; additionally, non-repudiation ensures that signator cannot later claim they did not send the message themselves.
Digital signatures are typically created using an encryption algorithm with two keys — one reserved exclusively for use by the signatory, while a public key may be made available to anyone for verification purposes. A certificate document containing information associated with each signing key and stored securely within a Certificate Authority (CA).
Users, web servers, embedded systems or connected devices in a PKI ecosystem can bind their public keys with user identifiers through authentication protocol binding to create trust relationships that ensure seamless communications from end-user to web server and beyond.
As is the case with encryption, digital signatures do not require technical or business support for their private key to remain safe from compromise or use by malicious parties. Signatory keys must always remain under their own control at all times and kept safely stored away if they become compromised; any compromise to them must result in immediate rescission along with changes being made to both system as well as existing signatures being revoked immediately.
Digital signatures are increasingly being utilized as a method to verify the authenticity, validity and legality of electronic documents in numerous industries such as law, medicine, finance and e-commerce. Many such industries – from law to medicine to finance to e-commerce – impose stringent requirements on the security and legality of documentation transactions; examples include publishing electronic versions of federal budget and laws by the US GPO as well as many universities issuing student transcripts with digital signatures attached. Furthermore, more governments and organizations are adopting laws treating digital signatures similarly with traditional ink signatures or authenticity stamps for greater legal certainty when transacting with digitally signed documents.
Access Control
Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)’s access control component oversees authorization and authentication processes to protect against data breaches, hacks, phishing attacks, malware infections and hacker extortions. This involves verifying users’ identities and credentials before authorizing access to networks or systems as well as authenticating communication between servers and users.
Access control requires verifying that user’s private and public keys are linked, using a certificate authority (CA). A CA serves to digitally sign, store and publish the public key that connects the two together, either centrally or distributed depending on trust levels placed with it.
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC), and Discretionary Access Control (DAC). RBAC is the most popular method, giving permission based on users’ roles within an organization – this enables administrators to implement least privilege security principles by restricting how much data a particular role can access. DAC allows data owners to set permissions as needed without oversight from administrators – this may introduce security risks due to data owners having full authority to grant or deny access without monitoring by system administrators.
Mandatory access control, which requires either a password or key card for entry into any area, is often employed in high-security environments such as commercial buildings and data centers.
As companies embrace hybrid work models and cloud-based business applications, access control solutions become essential in protecting data from unauthorised access. Citrix access control solutions offer zero trust network access (ZTNA) to IT-sanctioned applications located anywhere – be they on BYOD devices or the cloud itself. We continuously evaluate access based on end user roles, locations and device posture to keep malicious content and web threats away. Contact us now for more information about our comprehensive access control solutions!