Symmetric Key Algorithms
You already learned about symmetric key ciphers and the major issue with symmetric keys. Read the section in this article on symmetric key encryptions to learn more about the advantages and disadvantages of symmetric keys. There is more information about symmetric key ciphers in this article that will be covered in more detail later in this unit, but this article will give you a preview of 3DES, IDEA, and AES ciphers. View the flashcard tool as well to better understand and to learn the terms used in cryptography such as plaintext, ciphertext, key, encryption, decryption, countermeasure, symmetric key encryption, and block cipher.
15. Certificate Authority
In addition to verifying identities, the CA also creates the digital certificate. Once the digital certificate is issued, the CA then gives that user a public key, and separately stores the privet key if it's required. A CA should also contain a certification practice statement (CPS) which gives guidelines on how to verify identities.
The components of a Certificate Authority include: software, hardware, providers, human validation system, and policies as illustrated in Figure 6.
