Chapter 9. Implementing Public Key Infrastructure

Certificates are used for both encryption and authentication, and in this chapter, we are going to look at different encryption types and how certificates are issued and used. This is the most difficult module for students to understand, so we have focused on making the most difficult aspects seem easy. If you are going to be successful in the Security+ exam, you must know this module thoroughly. We will start with the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), both the public and private keys. It is an asymmetric form of encryption.

We will cover the following exam objectives in this chapter:

• Comparing and contrasting basic concepts of cryptography: Symmetric algorithms—modes of operation—asymmetric algorithms—hashing—salt, IV, nonce—elliptic curve—weak/deprecated algorithms—key exchange—digital signatures—diffusion—confusion—collision—steganography—obfuscation—stream vs. block—key strength—session keys—ephemeral key—secret algorithm—data-in-transit...