Description
Security for electronic commerce has become increasingly demanding in recent years owing to its widespread adoption across geographically distributed systems. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is a relatively new technology with foundations in mathematics and which provides the necessary security features for digital commerce. The main goal of this work is to provide an introduction to PKI and how it can be used across geographically distributed systems. We start with an introduction to electronic commerce security and discuss its security concerns. This is followed by an introduction to cryptography, which sets the stage for the main chapter on PKI which introduces several components of this system in detail and its expectations. Next, certificates and certificate management, which are key components of electronic security, are discussed. The work is concluded with real world applications of PKI, its restrictions and problems, and its future.
