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Certification authority

A certificate authority or certification authority (CA) is an entity that issues digital certificates for use by other parties. It is an example of a trusted third party. Certification authorities are characteristic of many public key infrastructure (PKI) schemes. There are many commercial certification authorities that charge for their services. There are also several providers issuing digital certificates to the public at no cost. Institutions and governments may have their own certification authorities.

A certification authority issues digital certificates that contain a public key and the identity of the owner. The matching private key is not similarly made available publicly, but kept secret by the end user who generated the key pair. The certificate is also an attestation by the certification authority that the public key contained in the certificate belongs to the person, organization, server or other entity noted in the certificate.