1822 VPN Access A more realistic example would be a company

18.2.2 VPN Access A more realistic example would be a company that has a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to allow its employees to access the corporate network from home or from their hotel room when they are traveling. The VPN access points must be able to recognize the people who have access and exactly what level of access they have. The IT department of the company acts as the CA and gives every employee a certificate that allows the VPN access points to recognize the employee.

18.2.5 Credit Card Organization A credit card organization is a cooperative venture between a few thousand banks spread out all over the world. All of these banks must be able to exchange payments. After all, a user who has a credit card from bank A must be able to pay the merchant that banks with bank B. Bank A will need to settle with bank B in some way, and that requires secure communications. A PKI allows all banks to identify each other and perform secure transactions. In this situation, the credit card organization can act as the CA that certifies the keys of each bank.

Exercise 18.4 In addition to the examples in Sections 18.2.2–18.2.5, give three example scenarios for which a PKI might be viable.

Solution

PKIs of one type or another, and from any of several vendors, have many uses, including providing public keys and bindings to user identities which are used for: