A digital certificate is an electronic credential that you can use to establish proof of identity in an electronic transaction. There are an increasing number of uses for digital certificates to provide enhanced network security measures. For example, digital certificates are essential to configuring and using the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). Using SSL allows you to create secure connections between users and server applications across an untrusted network, such as the Internet. SSL provides one of the best solutions for protecting the privacy of sensitive data, such as user names and passwords, over the Internet. Many iSeries™ services and applications, such as FTP, Telnet, HTTP Server provide SSL support to ensure data privacy.
iSeries provides extensive digital certificate support that allows you to use digital certificates as credentials in a number of security applications. In addition to using certificates to configure SSL, you can use them as credentials for client authentication in both SSL and virtual private network (VPN) transactions. Also, you can use digital certificates and their associated security keys to sign objects. Signing objects allows you to detect changes or possible tampering to object contents by verifying signatures on the objects to ensure their integrity.
Capitalizing on the iSeries support for certificates is easy when you use Digital Certificate Manager (DCM), a free feature, to centrally manage certificates for your applications. DCM allows you to manage certificates that you obtain from any Certificate Authority (CA). Also, you can use DCM to create and operate your own Local CA to issue private certificates to applications and users in your organization.
Proper planning and evaluation are the keys to using certificates effectively for their added security benefits. You might review these topics to learn more about how certificates work and how you can use DCM to manage them and the applications that use them: