CA
See Certification Authority
CA signing key pair
This consists of one key that the CA uses to sign digital certificates. This key is known as the signing private key. When accessing encrypted or signed information, the trustworthiness of this information is validated, in part, by using the CA's public key to authenticate the CA's signature.
Certificate
A digital "passport". A certificate is a secure electronic identity conforming to the X.509 standard. Certificates typically contain a user's name and public key. A CA authorizes certificates by signing the contents using its CA signing private key.
Certification Authority (CA)
The authority responsible for issuing secure electronic identities to users in the form of certificates. A certification authority issues and manages security credentials and public keys for message encryption. As part of a public key infrastructure, a CA checks with a registration authority to verify information provided by the requestor of a digital certificate. If the RA verifies the requestor's information, the CA can then issue a certificate.
Confidentiality
The assurance that information is not disclosed to unauthorized individuals, programs or processes. Through confidentiality measures one attempts to prevent the intentional, unintentional or unauthorized disclosure of a message??™s contents.
