cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adver ...

, a client certificate is a type of

digital certificate In cryptography, a public key certificate, also known as a digital certificate or identity certificate, is an electronic document used to prove the validity of a Key authentication, public key. The certificate includes information about the key, i ...

that is used by client systems to make authenticated requests to a remote

server Server may refer to: Computing *Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients Role * Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and su ...

. Client certificates play a key role in many

mutual authentication Mutual authentication or two-way authentication (not to be confused with two-factor authentication) refers to two parties authenticating each other at the same time in an authentication protocol. It is a default mode of authentication in some proto ...

designs, providing strong assurances of a requester's identity.

References

Public-key cryptography Key management {{Cryptography-stub

See also

References