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What is PKI (Public Key Infrastructure)?

A framework of policies, hardware, and software for creating, managing, distributing, and revoking digital certificates.

PKI enables secure communication through digital certificates that bind public keys to identities. Certificate Authorities (CAs) issue certificates, Registration Authorities verify identities, and Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs) track revoked certificates.

PKI underpins HTTPS, email encryption (S/MIME), code signing, VPNs, and document signing. Enterprise PKI manages internal certificates for servers, users, and devices. Let's Encrypt democratized PKI by offering free, automated DV certificates.

Related Terms

SAST (Static Application Security Testing)
Automated analysis of source code to find security vulnerabilities without executing the application.
Security Hardening
The process of reducing a system's attack surface by disabling unnecessary services, applying patches, and configuring security controls.
Hashing
A one-way function that converts input data into a fixed-size string of characters, used for data integrity and password storage.
DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service)
An attack that floods a target server or network with traffic from multiple sources to overwhelm it and deny service to legitimate users.
XSS (Cross-Site Scripting)
An attack that injects malicious scripts into web pages viewed by other users, potentially stealing data or session tokens.
Secret Management
The practice of securely storing, accessing, and rotating sensitive credentials like API keys, passwords, and certificates.
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