Securing email and electronic documents with digital certificates, by nicholas davis

Securing Email And Electronic Documents With Digital Certificates

Nicholas Davis – UW-Madison

Introduction

Nicholas Davis

PKI Project Lead at UW-Madison

Background in encryption and authentication technologies

Internet 1.0 is over

Compliance is the word for 2010

Digital certificates bring security and assurance to your electronic processes

Session Overview

• What is a PKI?

• What are digital certificates?

• What can they be used for?

• History of PKI and digital certificates at UW-Madison

• Expansion of PKI to UW System

• Question and answer session

• Moving forward!

What Is In a PKI?

• Credentialing of individuals

• Generating certificates

• Distributing certificates

• Keeping copies of certificates

• Reissuing certificates

• Revoking Certificates

What is a Digital Certificate?

What is in a Certificate?

Digital Certificate Uses

Digital Signing – Sign email and documents to prove that they came from you AND have not been altered from their original form.

Encryption – Protects email and attachments from being viewed or altered while in transit or storage

Authentication – Replacement for username and password

Digital Signatures

• Provides proof of the author

• Testifies to message or document integrity

• Valuable for both individual or mass email

What Does a Digital Signature Prove?

Provides proof that the

email came from the

purported sender…Is

this email really from

Britney Spears?

Provides proof that the

contents of the email

have not been altered

from the original form

What if This Happens at the UW?

Could cause harm in

a critical situation

Case Scenario

Multiple hoax emails sent with Chancellor’s name and email.

When real crisis arrives, people might not believe the warning.

It is all about trust!

A Digital Signature Can Be Invalid For Many Reasons

Is Email Secure?

Encryption

Encrypting data with a digital certificateSecures it end to end.• While in transit• Across the network• While sitting on email

servers• While in storage• On your desktop

computer• On your laptop

computer• On a server

Email SecurityDo you perceive your email to be as visible as a postcard?

Do you send sensitive information in email or as an attachment?

How can you be sure the email you send is protected once it reaches its final destination?

Public and Private Keys

The digital certificate has two parts, aPUBLIC key and a PRIVATE keyThe Public Key is distributed toeveryoneThe Private Key is held very closelyAnd NEVER sharedPublic Key is used for encryption andverification of a digital signaturePrivate Key is used for Digital signing anddecryption

Encryption

Getting Someone’s Public Key

The Public Key must be shared to beUsefulIt can be included as part of yourEmail signatureIt can be looked up in an LDAPDirectoryCan you think of the advantages anddisadvantages of each method?

Who Could This Public Key Possibly Belong To?

Secure Email is Called S/MIME

• S/MIME = Secure Multipurpose Mail Extensions

• S/MIME is the industry standard, not a point solution, unique to a specific vendor

Authentication - One Card - One Identity

Credentialing

• Non technical, but the most important part of a PKI!

• A certificate is only as trustworthy as the underlying credentialing and management system

• Certificate Policies and Certificate Practices Statement

Certificate Generation and Storage

• How do you know who you are dealing with in the generation process?

• Where you keep the certificate is important

Distributing Certificates

• Can be done remotely – benefits and drawbacks

• Can be done face to face – benefits and drawbacks

Keeping Copies – Key Escrow• Benefit –

Available in case of emergency

• Drawback – Can be stolen

• Compromise is the best!

• Use Audit Trails, separation of duties and good accounting controls for key escrow

Certificate Renewal

• Just like your passport, digital certificates expire

• This is for the safety of the organization and those who do business with it

• Short lifetime – more assurance of validity but a pain to renew

• Long lifetime – less assurance of validity, but easier to manage

• Use a Certificate Revocation List if you are unsure of certificate validity

Trusted Root Authorities

• A certificate issuer recognized by all computers around the globe

• Root certificates are stored in the computer’s central certificate store

• Requires a stringent audit and a lot of money!

It Is All About Trust

Encrypting An Email

Future of PKI at the University of Wisconsin

Migrating to a new PKI provider

5 year lifetime on certificates

LDAP push and pull connectivity

Beyond UW-Madison, to include other UW System campuses

Secure business communications via email between campuses

Perhaps replacing username and password authentication for sensitive applications.

It Really Is Up To You!

• Digital certificates / PKI is not hard to implement

• It provides end to end security of sensitive communications

• It is comprehensive, not a mix of point solutions

• Internet 1.0 is gone, let’s get down to the business of securing our communications.

Question and Answer Session

• Nicholas Davis

• [email protected]

• Please let me know how I can be of assistance in your PKI, digital signature and secure email efforts