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 In the 1990s, as organizations began to leverage the power of the Internet to conduct business, they were faced with the challenge of protecting their vital resources from unauthorized individuals. As sensitive information flowed through the Internet's vast network of cables and routers, it was easily intercepted and monitored by hackers and corporate spies. Simple authentication procedures such as password protection did not go far enough to resolve the problem, as information was still being sent across the network in cleartext (unencrypted), and passwords could be very easily intercepted or guessed and exposed to the world in a matter of milliseconds. Clearly, organizations needed a way to encrypt information to prevent monitoring, and a stronger method of authenticating individuals to websites and other online resources. Enter Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) technology. With a PKI, authorized individuals are issued digital certificates which they use to gain access to private network resources. A digital certificate allows its user to sign information with a digital signature which is nearly impossible to fake and provides a high degree of assurance that the person using it is who they say they are. This is precisely why PKI is so critical to the goals of the Homeland Security Presidential Directive #12 (HSPD-12) program (read more about that here). In addition, digitally signed activities are hard to refute. PKI systems also allow the organization to encrypt data where needed, such as data found on private web servers and databases. With encryption enabled, unauthorized attempts to monitor sensitive network information can prove to be exceedingly difficult. In other words, PKI provides the following services:
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