Public Key Infrastructure
A Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is a system that provides public key cryptography services to a business. Its purpose is to manage the keys and certificates that enable the use of encryption and digital signatures. PKI is a foundation for secure electronic commerce, combining policy, legislation, technology and services to create a trusted environment that protects the security of communications and transactions over open networks, such as the internet.
PKI has a reputation for being both difficult and expensive. It needn't be. Castelain specialise in the design and construction of PKI systems. We have designed and built successful PKI enabled systems for a range of large government and banking clients throughout Australia and elsewhere in the world. We are familiar with the standards and can offer extensive expertise to help organisations needing to overcome the various policy, legal, technology and operational challenges. Check out our publications section for an introduction to PKI, and for a discussion on the relative merits of in-sourcing vs outsourcing a PKI.
Castelain work closely with a range of the PKI system vendors including RSA, Entrust, VeriSign and Verizon and have designed, built, integrated and commissioned systems using all of their products. While we specialise in PKI we are not product vendors and consequently can be relied on to provide advice that is completely unbiased. In addition to building systems for our many clients, our staff have been instrumental in developing some shareware PKI products including the "SimpleAuthority" shareware CA product and the Common Signing Interface (CSI) toolkit used extensively in federal government systems. If you need pragmatic unbiased advice, help designing a solution or just to talk to people who understand the technology better than most - then contact us.
