The Key Authority - Secure Key Management in Hierarchical Public Key Infrastructures

摘要

We model a private key`s life cycle as a finite state machine. The states arethe key`s phases of life and the transition functions describe tasks to be donewith the key. Based on this we define and describe the key authority, a trustcenter module, which potentiates the easy enforcement of secure management ofprivate keys in hierarchical public key infrastructures. This is done byassembling all trust center tasks concerning the crucial handling of privatekeys within one centralized module. As this module resides under full controlof the trust center`s carrier it can easily be protected by well-knownorganizational and technical measures.