Confidentiality, authentication, integrity, and nonrepudiation are the four most important ingredients required for trust in e-commerce transactions. The emerging response to these requirements is the implementation of PKI technology. PKI utilizes digital certificates and asymmetric cryptography to address these requirements. One of these keys is typically made public, by posting it in a publicly accessible read-only repository for example, while the other remains private. This technology can be used in different ways to provide confidentiality, authentication, integrity, and nonrepudiation.
Cryptography is critical to establishing secure e-commerce.
However, it has to be coupled with other secure protocols in order to provide a comprehensive security solution. CAs have assumed an increasingly important role in secure e-commerce. Although there is a large body of existing national, international, and proprietary standards and guidelines for the use of cryptography, the management of digital certificates, and the policies and practices of CAs, these standards have not been applied uniformly. This seal would be displayed on the CA's Web site together with links to the practitioner's report and other relevant information. We anticipate that future revisions will be needed to update these criteria and related materials as the available technology and common business practices evolve.