10.6 Summary
In this chapter, we have discussed digital certificates as a means to provide authenticity for public keys, and the bodies that issue certificates, Certification Authorities (CAs). In particular, we looked at the minimum set of data that needs to be presented within a certificate, and the optional parts of a certificate.
Regarding CAs, we discussed their tasks and the processes for obtaining and validating certificates. We have also seen how CAs fit into the larger structure needed to manage public keys, the Public-Key Infrastructure (PKI).
After these more general considerations, we looked in detail at how digital certificates are handled within the TLS 1.3 handshake protocol.
The next chapter will be more technical again, as it discusses hash functions and message authentication codes. Apart from digital signatures (which also use hash functions), they are the main cryptographic mechanisms for providing authenticity to handshake messages.
