Secure Web Access Terms

certificate authority (CA)

Third-party organization or company that issues digital certificates used to create digital signatures and public-private key pairs. The CA guarantees the identity of the individual or device that presents the digital certificate.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

Protocol used to publish and receive information on the Web, such as text and graphics files.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Secure Sockets Layer (HTTPS)

Protocol similar to HTTP with an added encryption layer that encrypts and decrypts user page requests and pages that are returned by a webserver. HTTPS is used for secure communication, such as payment transactions.

Privacy-Enhanced Mail (PEM)

Technique for securely exchanging electronic mail over a public medium. PEM is based upon public key infrastructure (PKI) standards like X.509 certificates. SSL certificates are partly based on PEM and end in the suffix .pem.

RSA

Public key cipher that can be used for encrypting messages and making digital signatures. RSA uses a well-known encryption and authentication algorithm that is a part of popular Web browsers.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

Protocol that encrypts security information before transmitting data across a network. SSL requires two keys to encrypt data—a public key known to everyone and a private or secret key known only to the recipient of the message—and an authentication certificate. Most popular Web browsers support SSL.

SSL certificate

Secure electronic identifier conforming to the X.509 standard, definitively identifying an individual, system, company, or organization. In addition to identification data, the digital certificate contains a serial number, a copy of the certificate holder’s public key, the identity and digital signature of the issuing certificate authority (CA), and an expiration date.