PKI Implementation and Infrastructures

Julian Ashbourn

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9781032419824
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000844962
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Computer Science

The concept of a PKI (public key infrastructure) has been around for decades, but it is one strand of IT which has taken an extraordinarily long time to come to fruition within the mainstream. This is mostly because implementing a PKI is time consuming and difficult. Maintaining a PKI is equally time consuming and even more difficult within the real world of mergers and acquisitions against a backdrop of ever-changing technology. Many organisations simply give up and hand everything over to a third party who promises to manage everything on their behalf. This is generally not a good idea and simply delays the inevitability of failures and misunderstood complexity. This book explores all the aspects of implementing and maintaining a PKI that the other books on the subject seem to miss. It reflects decades of hard-won experience, not only in PKI, not only in IT, not only in electronics, but in business, government agencies and academia alike. The book also explores the existence of a PKI alongside other technologies, such as biometrics, and against an ever-changing world of development methodologies. This last point is particularly relevant at this time as we are in the middle of a quiet, but all encompassing revolution in this respect. Consequently, this is the one book on PKI that you have to have on your shelf, whether you be a company director, IT manager, government minister or teacher of IT. It is the book which fills in all the gaps left in the literature and treads paths which others fear to tread. You will enjoy it enormously if you are from an IT background.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction: Setting the Scene
• Chapter 1 What exactly is a public key infrastructure? The original concept
• Chapter 2 How does PKI work? The Nuts and Bolts of PKI
• Chapter 3 What are the primary applications for a PKI? How applications are changing
• Chapter 4 What exactly is a digital certificate? The contents of a certificate
• Chapter 5 What about encryption? How a public key infrastructure is used for encryption
• Chapter 6 Biometrics and public key infrastructure: The possibilities of biometric certificates
• Chapter 7 What is the conventional wider infrastructure? Different infrastructure models explained
• Chapter 8 Kubernetes, containers and PKI: The container model and its implications for PKI
• Chapter 9 Trust and certificates: The original concept has changed
• Chapter 10 How may a localised infrastructure work? Keeping things simple
• Chapter 11 What happens when certificates expire? What can go wrong?
• Chapter 12 How do we ensure that certificates do not expire? Methodologies for security
• Chapter 13 How does the human interaction work? Managing things manually
• Chapter 14 Can we organise everything ourselves? Understanding what to do
• Chapter 15 How long does it take to implement a proper PKI? Understanding the scale of the problem
• Chapter 16 What skills are required for operational personnel? Understanding associated technologies
• Chapter 17 How do we embed a PKI culture in the workplace? Communication
• Chapter 18 How do we keep it working as we grow? Planning and documentation
• Chapter 19 What happens if we acquire other companies? Merging public key infrastructures
• Chapter 20 Who should be responsible for it all? Accountability
• Chapter 21 PKI, the cloud and the Internet of things: What we should understand
• Chapter 22 PKI and the global financial industry: The reliance upon a large-scale public key infrastructure
• Chapter 23 PKI and government legislation: Ensuring that legislation is compatible
• Chapter 24 Consequences: What happens when it all goes wrong
• Epilogue: Summing things up
• Index