Openssl

An SSL certificate is a digital certificate issued by a trusted third-party authority known as a Certificate Authority (CA). It verifies the identity of a website or server and enables secure, encrypted communication. Components of an SSL Certificate Public Key: Used for encryption and verifying the certificate’s authenticity. Certificate Holder Information: Details like the domain name, organization, and location. Issuer Information: The CA that issued the certificate. Validity Period: Specifies the time frame during which the certificate is valid. Digital Signature: Ensures the certificate was issued by a trusted CA and has not been tampered with. Self-Signed Certificates Examples and Differences Type Usage Example Difference Self-Signed Internal servers, testing Generated via OpenSSL Not trusted by default in browsers or OS. CA-Signed Public-facing servers Issued by DigiCert, Let’s Encrypt Trusted by browsers and OS. Wildcard Certificate Secures a domain and its subdomains *.example.com Can’t be self-signed, requires a CA. Multi-Domain Certificate Covers multiple domains example.com, test.com Self-signed possible but not widely used. Self-Signed Certificates A self-signed certificate is a digital certificate that is not issued by a trusted Certificate Authority (CA) but is signed by the entity it is certifying (e.g., your own server). These certificates are primarily used for internal testing, development environments, or scenarios where external trust is not required. ...