iSACA Cybersecurity Fundamentals Certification Practice Exam

What role does a Certificate Authority (CA) serve?

1. It generates random cryptographic keys

2. It issues and verifies digital certificates

3. It creates firewalls to prevent data loss

4. It acts as a backup for encryption keys

The correct answer is: It issues and verifies digital certificates

A Certificate Authority (CA) plays a crucial role in the public key infrastructure (PKI) by issuing and verifying digital certificates. Digital certificates are electronic documents used to prove the ownership of a public key, linking it to the entity that holds the corresponding private key. This confirmation ensures that the public key can be trusted and is associated with the legitimate owner, whether that be an individual, organization, or device. When a CA issues a digital certificate, it digitally signs the certificate using its own private key, thus verifying that the information contained, such as the owner’s identity and the public key, is valid. This process is essential for enabling secure communications over networks, such as the Internet, as it allows users to authenticate each other and establish encrypted connections. The verification process that CAs conduct is equally important. They validate the identity of the certificate requester before issuing a certificate. This helps provide assurance to users that they are indeed connecting to the intended party, thus protecting against man-in-the-middle attacks and other security threats. In contrast, the other choices describe functions unrelated to the primary responsibilities of a Certificate Authority. Generating random cryptographic keys is typically handled by secure key generation algorithms and processes rather than a CA. Creating firewalls is part of network