Certificate Management

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What Does Certificate Management Mean?

Certificate management is the process of managing digital security certificates. This includes processes such as:

  • Creation
  • Storage
  • Dissemination
  • Suspension
  • Revocation

Certificate authorities are responsible for certificate management and serve as a registration authority for subscriber certificates.

Techopedia Explains Certificate Management

Digital certificates are important for establishing trust and conforming to security protocols, so it follows that the management of such certificates is a very important process. The certificate authority (CA) has the right to create and issue certificates to those that request them. Issued and accepted certificates are marked as valid through publication to a certificate repository, another entity which keeps records of valid certificates with attributes like validity period and owner.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.