Organizations have many applications to manage, and these are hosted by different systems and servers. Organizations have deployed several ways to authenticate users, based on methods such as multi-factor authentication, one for each system/application, single sign-on (SSO), and the directory server; however, authenticating users on the internet is a comparatively difficult mechanism. It is also extremely important to achieve trust over the internet before exchanging information because the internet has been kept open for trusted and untrusted parties. In order to established trust over a public network, there is the need for an independent trusted party. A public key infrastructure (PKI) is an open framework built to resolve trust factors between internet-connected users.
In this chapter, we will learn about the following...