Internet Security: Public-Key Infrastractures and Certification Systems

In the current business environment there is an ever growing view of the World Wide Web, commonly referred to as the Internet, as the new frontier for electronic commerce or ecommerce. As a result many businesses are developing applications and/or websites in order to conduct e-commerce on the Internet without properly considering the implications of the certification system that they are choosing to use, if they use one at all. The aim of this paper is to present work in the area of public key infrastructures and certification systems by discussing important topics pertaining to this area of research. The security needs of businesses will be initially discussed as an introduction to certification systems. This leads into the discussions of X.509 public key infrastructures and certificate revocation, where the associated problems will be discussed.