Establishing a proprietary CA

Referring to public CAs for secure enterprise communications can only be recommended under certain conditions.

An alternative for company communications is to establish a proprietary CA. Suitable packages are the Microsoft CA on a Microsoft Windows server or, as an open source version, OpenSSL. A proprietary CA empowers you to issue and manage all of the necessary certificates for secure data exchange with complete independence from any external parties.

Companies are recommended to use a proprietary CA rather than public certifiers. There are, however, several important issues to be considered when planning a CA. For example, even as early as during the installation of a Windows CA, the validity period for the Root CAs has to be defined and cannot be altered subsequently. Other aspects of planning include:

Precise planning is strongly recommended since corrections at a later date often imply considerable amounts of effort.

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