What is the relationship between public keys and Digital Certificates?
A certificate is an electronic document that binds a public key to a particular individual or organization. A trusted third party, called a Certifying Authority (CA), issues certificates. Before issuing a certificate, a CA will go though a series of authentication procedures to make sure that you are what you claim to be, and that the public key in the certificate really belongs to you. The certificate is then encrypted (signed) with the CA’s private key. Thus, if the end users trust the CA, and have the CAs public key, he can be sure of the certificate’s legitimacy.
