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ISACA Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) 2024 job practice · Domain 5: Protection of information assets

Public key infrastructure (PKI) and digital signatures

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Last reviewed September 30, 2026 · Leer en español

Asymmetric cryptography gives everyone a public key that anyone can use and a private key only the owner holds. That raises a trust problem: how do you know a public key really belongs to your bank, your supplier or a colleague, and not to an impostor? Public key infrastructure (PKI) solves it with digital certificates issued by trusted certificate authorities, plus the policies, people and systems needed to issue, manage and revoke them. Every secure website connection and most signed software rely on it.

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