X.500 is a series of computer networking standards covering electronic directory services. The X.500 series was developed by the Telecommunication Standardization Sector of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-T). ITU-T was formerly known as the Consultative Committee for International Telephony and Telegraphy (CCITT). X.500 was first approved in 1988. The directory services were developed to support requirements of X.400 electronic mail exchange and name lookup. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) were partners in developing the standards, incorporating them into the Open Systems Interconnection suite of protocols. ISO/IEC 9594 is the corresponding ISO/IEC identification.
In cryptography and computer security, a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack is a cyberattack where the attacker secretly relays and possibly alters the communications between two parties who believe that they are directly communicating with each other, as the attacker has inserted themselves between the two parties.
In cryptography, a public key certificate, also known as a digital certificate or identity certificate, is an electronic document used to prove the validity of a public key. The certificate includes the public key and information about it, information about the identity of its owner, and the digital signature of an entity that has verified the certificate's contents. If the device examining the certificate trusts the issuer and finds the signature to be a valid signature of that issuer, then it can use the included public key to communicate securely with the certificate's subject. In email encryption, code signing, and e-signature systems, a certificate's subject is typically a person or organization. However, in Transport Layer Security (TLS) a certificate's subject is typically a computer or other device, though TLS certificates may identify organizations or individuals in addition to their core role in identifying devices. TLS, sometimes called by its older name Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), is notable for being a part of HTTPS, a protocol for securely browsing the web.
In cryptography, X.509 is an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) standard defining the format of public key certificates. X.509 certificates are used in many Internet protocols, including TLS/SSL, which is the basis for HTTPS, the secure protocol for browsing the web. They are also used in offline applications, like electronic signatures.
In cryptography and computer security, a root certificate is a public key certificate that identifies a root certificate authority (CA). Root certificates are self-signed and form the basis of an X.509-based public key infrastructure (PKI). Either it has matched Authority Key Identifier with Subject Key Identifier, in some cases there is no Authority Key identifier, then Issuer string should match with Subject string. For instance, the PKIs supporting HTTPS for secure web browsing and electronic signature schemes depend on a set of root certificates.
In cryptography, a certificate authority or certification authority (CA) is an entity that stores, signs, and issues digital certificates. A digital certificate certifies the ownership of a public key by the named subject of the certificate. This allows others to rely upon signatures or on assertions made about the private key that corresponds to the certified public key. A CA acts as a trusted third party—trusted both by the subject (owner) of the certificate and by the party relying upon the certificate. The format of these certificates is specified by the X.509 or EMV standard.
Verisign Inc. is an American company based in Reston, Virginia, United States, that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the .com, .net, and .name generic top-level domains and the .cc country-code top-level domains, and the back-end systems for the .jobs and .edu sponsored top-level domains.
In cryptography, a trusted third party (TTP) is an entity which facilitates interactions between two parties who both trust the third party; the third party reviews all critical transaction communications between the parties, based on the ease of creating fraudulent digital content. In TTP models, the relying parties use this trust to secure their own interactions. TTPs are common in any number of commercial transactions and in cryptographic digital transactions as well as cryptographic protocols, for example, a certificate authority (CA) would issue a digital certificate to one of the two parties in the next example. The CA then becomes the TTP to that certificate's issuance. Likewise transactions that need a third party recordation would also need a third-party repository service of some kind.
An electronic identification ("eID") is a digital solution for proof of identity of citizens or organizations. They can be used to view to access benefits or services provided by government authorities, banks or other companies, for mobile payments, etc. Apart from online authentication and login, many electronic identity services also give users the option to sign electronic documents with a digital signature.
CyberTrust was a security services company formed in Virginia in November 2004 from the merger of TruSecure and Betrusted. Betrusted previously acquired GTE Cybertrust. Cybertrust acquired a large stake in Ubizen, a European security services firm based in Belgium, to become one of the largest information security firms in the world. It was acquired by Verizon Business in 2007. In 2015, the CyberTrust root certificates were acquired by DigiCert, Inc., a leading global Certificate Authority (CA) and provider of trusted identity and authentication services.
Thawte Consulting is a certificate authority (CA) for X.509 certificates. Thawte was founded in 1995 by Mark Shuttleworth in South Africa. As of December 30, 2016, its then-parent company, Symantec Group, was collectively the third largest public CA on the Internet with 17.2% market share.
GlobalSign is a certificate authority and a provider of internet identity and security products. As of January 2015, Globalsign was the 4th largest certificate authority in the world, according to Netcraft.
DigiCert, Inc. is a digital security company headquartered in Lehi, Utah. As a certificate authority (CA) and trusted third party, DigiCert provides public key infrastructure (PKI) and validation required for issuing digital certificates or TLS/SSL certificates.
The Certification Authority Browser Forum, also known as the CA/Browser Forum, is a voluntary consortium of certification authorities, vendors of Internet browser and secure email software, operating systems, and other PKI-enabled applications that promulgates industry guidelines governing the issuance and management of X.509 v.3 digital certificates that chain to a trust anchor embedded in such applications. Its guidelines cover certificates used for the SSL/TLS protocol and code signing, as well as system and network security of certificate authorities.
DigiNotar was a Dutch certificate authority owned by VASCO Data Security International, Inc.
Convergence was a proposed strategy for replacing SSL certificate authorities, first put forth by Moxie Marlinspike in August 2011 while giving a talk titled "SSL and the Future of Authenticity" at the Black Hat security conference. It was demonstrated with a Firefox addon and a server-side notary daemon.
Electronic signature allows users to electronically perform the actions for which they previously had to give a signature on paper. Estonia's digital signature system is the foundation for some of its most popular e-services including registering a company online, e-banks, the e-voting system and electronic tax filing – essentially any services that require signatures to prove their validity.
Certificate Transparency (CT) is an Internet security standard for monitoring and auditing the issuance of digital certificates.
DigiLocker is a digitization service provided by the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) under its Digital India initiative. DigiLocker allows access to digital versions of various documents including drivers licenses, vehicle registration certificates and academic mark sheets. It also provides 1 GB storage space to each account to upload scanned copies of legacy documents.
OneSpan is a publicly traded cybersecurity technology company based in Boston, Massachusetts, with offices in Montreal, Brussels and Zurich. The company offers a cloud-based and open-architected anti-fraud platform and is historically known for its multi-factor authentication and electronic signature software.
