In
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 adve ...
, 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 public key. The certificate includes information about the key, information about th ...
that is used by
client systems to make authenticated requests to a remote
server.
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 pro ...
designs, providing strong assurances of a requester's identity.
See also
*
Client-authenticated TLS handshake
References
Public-key cryptography
Key management
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