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A root certificate is the top-most certificate of the tree, the private key which is used to "sign" other certificates. All certificates signed by the root certificate, with the "CA" field set to true, inherit the trustworthiness of the root certificate—a signature by a root certificate is somewhat analogous to "notarizing" identity in the ...
In public-key cryptography and computer security, a root-key ceremony is a procedure for generating a unique pair of public and private root keys. Depending on the certificate policy of a system, the generation of the root keys may require notarization, legal representation, witnesses, or “key-holders” to be present.
The digital certificate chain of trust starts with a self-signed certificate, called a root certificate, trust anchor, or trust root. A certificate authority self-signs a root certificate to be able to sign other certificates. An intermediate certificate has a similar purpose to the root certificate – its only use is to sign other certificates.
X.509 certificates bind an identity to a public key using a digital signature. In the X.509 system, there are two types of certificates. The first is a CA certificate. The second is an end-entity certificate. A CA certificate can issue other certificates. The top level, self-signed CA certificate is sometimes called the Root CA certificate.
The certificate is also a confirmation or validation by the CA that the public key contained in the certificate belongs to the person, organization, server or other entity noted in the certificate. A CA's obligation in such schemes is to verify an applicant's credentials, so that users and relying parties can trust the information in the issued ...
The roles of root certificate, intermediate certificate and end-entity certificate as in the chain of trust. In computer security, a chain of trust is established by validating each component of hardware and software from the end entity up to the root certificate. It is intended to ensure that only trusted software and hardware can be used ...
Currently the majority of web browsers are shipped with pre-installed intermediate certificates issued and signed by a certificate authority, by public keys certified by so-called root certificates. This means browsers need to carry a large number of different certificate providers, increasing the risk of a key compromise.
Once the root CA is installed and its root certificate is created, the next action taken by the administrator of the root CA is to issue certificates authorizing intermediate (or subordinate) CAs. This creates the ability to issue, distribute and revoke digital certificates without the direct action of the root CA.