How Does PKI Work to Keep Your Business Safe?

JISASoftech
4 min readMay 24, 2023

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In the cyber world, public key infrastructure is an essential element of your daily life. It protects everything from your browser’s login credentials to the sensitive data you send via email — here’s a description of how PKI works.

Before we can answer the question, “How Does PKI Work?” Let’s Start with What It Is…

What is PKI (public key infrastructure) and how does it work?

PKI (public key infrastructure) is the framework that allows users and servers to securely exchange information via digital certificates. General internet users, web clients or browsers, and company servers are among the entities that facilitate and utilize PKI, though this can also include other virtual machines (VMs).

PKI referred to infrastructure because they do not refer to a single physical object. Rather, it refers to the components that are utilized to encrypt data and verify digital certificates. Hardware, software, policies, procedures, and entities are all needed to distribute, verify, and revoke certificates safely.

Public key infrastructure is all about trust, specifically how two entities may connect safely with one another. PKI entails a wide range of roles, policies, and procedures, as well as software and hardware. It allows for the safe electronic transport of data for activities like eCommerce, online payments, and email. Digital certificates, digital signatures, secure email, public key encryption management, and other methods are used to apply the technology.

Importance of PKI in Today’s Digital Age:

PKIs are essential in today’s digital age since millions of apps and connected devices need to be certified. Authentication and access controls are at the core of nearly all security controls. Encryption is an effective tool for securing data, but it is meaningless unless the data can be decrypted. Determining who has the authority to decrypt data and use applications becomes crucial.

The need to authenticate and verify becomes crucial and precise when we consider cloud computing, outsourcing, virtualization, and other examples of where traditional perimeter protections in an organization have started to disappear. If a company is concerned about the security of its data and systems, it must either engage a trusted third-party service or implement a PKI with adequate checks and balances. If the company fails to do so, it exposes itself to dangers and makes itself more exposed to other possible victims.

To authenticate a fully mobile, multi-device workforce, companies now issue millions of certificates. Digital certificates are still the most common means for a firm to identify its assets and ensure that they have safe communications across those assets so that they may be managed remotely. Aside from employee devices, businesses must also deal with embedded certificates in various cloud systems.

Read More: Encryption — The Important Aspect of Cybersecurity

PKI’s Role in Business Security:

Secure communications and access to reliable data are critical components of practically any modern business’s success. But how does Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) aid in the protection of your company’s critical data? Your organization can use public key infrastructure to:

  • Secure the data transmission channel to and from your web server, making it more secure in the eyes of Google and other search engines. (This prevents consumers from seeing “not secure” alerts in their browsers when they visit your site.)
  • Encrypt and/or digitally sign email communications to help prevent phishing scams and data breaches caused by email
  • Digitally sign documents, ensuring their integrity.
  • Digitally sign software, to ensure that it has been signed by a legitimate authority and that it has not been modified after it was signed.
  • Only allow access to individual users or applications (authentication)
  • Limit the operations that a user or application can execute in specified systems (authorization)
  • Verify the integrity of your messages and data with a trustworthy third party (non-repudiation)
  • Demonstrate to search engines that your website or server delivers data in a secure manner.

For enterprises and organizations of all sizes, public key infrastructure is becoming increasingly important. PKI is what helps you secure and defend the integrity of your data, whether you’re wanting to protect your own intellectual property or the privacy of your customers. It’s also what allows for authentication by allowing a trusted third party to validate your legitimacy.

However, in order for PKI to function successfully, all components of the certificate lifecycle must be properly managed. This is a key role that you must not avoid; your organization’s reputation and compliance depend on it.

About Us:

JISA Softech is a cryptography-focused information technology company based in India. We offer cryptographic solutions to financial institutions, manufacturers, enterprises and government agencies. Our primary product lines have included industry-compliant Hardware Security Modules, Key Management Solutions, Tokenisation, Encryption, Aadhaar Data Vault, and Authentication solutions. All our Cryptographic solutions are sold under the brand name CryptoBind. Our innovative solutions have been adopted by businesses across the country to handle mission-critical data security and data protection needs.

To know more about us visit:

Website: www.jisasoftech.com

Email: sales@jisasoftech.com

Phone: +91–9619222553

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JISASoftech

We are a young Information Technology company providing various Authentication products and Solutions.