Frequently Asked Questions

 

Frequently Asked Questions & Answers

1.What does Certification Authority do? Certification Authority provides digital certificates that help create an online identification and security system for the Internet allowing individuals, corporations and government organisations to conduct transactions and communications with full security and confidence. Digital Certificates can be seen as the equivalent of one's signature or thumbprint in cyberspace. Key features include: Authentication. Verifies sender and receiver identities. Prevents impersonations and misrepresentations. Privacy. Ensures the information exchanged between the sender and the receiver stays private and confidential. Data integrity. Confirms that the information sent is intact and has not been altered in any way. Non-repudiation. Provides proof that a transaction took place. In other words, once the identity of the signer of the digital certificate is confirmed, it becomes almost impossible to refute the signature at a later date   2.Why do I need Digital Certificates? There are many Certificate-enabled applications and products, and many more will be coming up in the near future. These include online banking, cyber-shopping, electronic data interchange (EDI), secure electronic mail, government applications and services, online health services etc. These applications are expected to increase your productivity, reduce your costs and will make it very convenient for users to access many services from the comfort of their homes or offices. To access these applications, you will need to have Digital Certificates. The Digital Certification should be Certificate--Ready and enabled applications, software and hardware as and when they become available. Digital Certificate users will be able to use any CA-Ready application, hardware or software .   4.What are the types of Digital Certificates offered by? CA can offer various classes of Digital Certificates, differentiated by the level of assurance they provide. Gold Certificates are issued on smart cards or other certified security tokens and provides the highest level of user and server security/identification for electronic commerce and high value transactions. Silver Certificates are issued on diskettes or stored on hard disks and can be used for lower-value transactions and authenticated access to online services. In addition, It also issues SET certificates for individuals, merchants and gateways. SET or Secure Electronic Transaction, is the Visa/MasterCard initiative for secure online credit card transactions. The SET certificates will make the online transmission of credit card information secure.     5.What information is contained in a Digital Certificate? A Digital Certificate typically contains: Name and other unique identification information of the certificate holder e.g. NRIC number, passport number or other identification information . Public key of the certificate holder. This is a unique key associated with the certificate holder only. Digital signature of the Certification Authority. The digital signature of CA implies the association of the public key with the identification information of the certificate holder. Expiry date of the certificate. A digital certificate will have a limited lifespan to maximise security. Digital Certificates are typically valid for up to three years or less, depending on the usage of the certificates. Certificates that are used for high value transactions may have a shorter lifespan. 5. What government organisations is to implement Certificate Registration capabilities in bank branches and government offices. Either the Department of Justice or similar agency.  In the near future, you will be able to obtain Digital Certificates from a bank branch near you. For businesses and government organisations, It can also set up temporary registration services in your premises to register and issue Digital Certificates to your users on the spot.   6.How do businesses or government organisations certificate-enable their applications or products? The toolkits are based on industry standards and are extremely easy to use. They can obtain the toolkits directly from Alliance Partner to help in the development or integration. . 7.What is the Alliance Program? The Alliance Program can be launched to help developers and system integrators develop or deploy Certificate-enabled applications. Businesses and government organisations that want to leverage on the identification and security features of Digital Certificates can partner and use Company-Supplier-supplied toolkits to integrate certificate support into their applications or products. System integrators, applications and product developers are provided with toolkits to Certificate-enable a broad range of hardware and software as well as Web-based applications. Businesses and government organisations requiring identification and security solutions will be able to tap on the services and expertise of a ready pool of more than t Alliance Partners. 8. How does a Certification Authority Internet POS looks like?   *Information contained herein were gathered from Security Certification model of the United States and Canada.  Singapore has similar body under the Ministry of Justice.