Patent ID: 8627064

Claim:
A system, comprising: a digital storage device; and one or more processors in communication with the digital storage device, the one or more processors being configured to implement: a root certificate management system (root CMS) configured to process requests for digital certificates and to issue root certificates, and configured to automatically authenticate surrogate certificate management systems (sur-CMSs), and configured to automatically process certificate requests and to issue certificate bundles to sur-CMSs that are successfully authenticated; and two or more sur-CMSs, each of said two or more sur-CMSs having one or more base stations assigned to it within a respective region; wherein each of said two or more sur-CMSs is configured to automatically authenticate its own base stations, and configured to automatically process certificate requests and to issue certificate bundles to base stations that are successfully authenticated; wherein each certificate bundle issued to a base station includes: a digital certificate, signed by an issuing sur-CMS, of a public key of such base station; and at least one further digital certificate, including a self-signed certificate of the root CMS; and wherein each of said two or more sur-CMSs is configured to receive a signal from a base station indicating a success or failure of an authenticating transaction relating to a certificate bundle.