TEXT: Imran Ashraf is helping companies to leverage the power of PKI and blockchain. His area of intrest is CBDC, NFTs and super wallets. He is a founding member of the first PKI Certificate Authority in Pakistan. He is also a Certified Computer Hacking Forensic Investigator, and Digital Identity solutions expert

PKI IS TRUSTED TO SECURE EVERYTHING FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN TO THE EDGE OF SPACE

When British cryptologists James Ellis and Clifford Cocks first developed the idea of “nonsecret encryption” in the 1970s, they could not have conceived of its use across tens of millions of websites around the world. At that time, the Internet was still a DARPA project, used infrequently to connect university researchers looking to share data or findings.

Within a few decades, the world had changed, and Ellis and Cocks’ public key infrastructure stood at the centre of the Information Age as the shield against hacking and fraud. To this day, if a website is trusted, that trust is the result of PKI.

But the invention of the world wide web—which, by itself, would have been enough to define an era of human development—was immediately followed by a second revolution in connected devices. Practically overnight, everything from refrigerators to space shuttles and online shopping to banking apps became a part of a global ecosystem of networks, devices, applications and users, all communicating across distances.

The speed of growth was and continues to be, so rapid it can only be measured by orders of magnitude, and as hundreds of thousands of people develop new ideas for connecting millions of people to billions of things, the need for strong security has climbed at an exponential rate.

For all the good created by the Information Age— from cultural exchange to advances in medical care—this massive network of communication has offered up new possibilities for opportunists and criminals to take advantage of our users and an easy willingness to trust in the technology

The solution to this threat is simple. Build the highest assurance into everything that’s connected. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is that foundational assurance. A security and identity solution that’s reliable enough to protect the most sensitive data, but flexible enough to work on the latest and greatest inventions. With PKI, the only thing we need to focus on is enjoying the benefits of a world that can communicate almost instantaneously across the globe—and even into space.

PKI infrastructure serves as a certificate authority (CA) for your internal and external users, issuing and administering digital certificates by your own organization's policies. Your users can use a PKI Services application to request and obtain certificates through their web browsers over mobile phones devices and personal computers.

NIFTeTRUST is the First Certificate Authority (CA) in Pakistan established under NIFT (Pvt) Ltd. and VeriSign Inc in 2004. It is the most trusted name in the region, providing PKI services to the various industry segments of Pakistan. With its datacenter certified to international standards, X9.79 and ISO-27001 and ISO-21188 NIFTeTRUST have paved way for the organizations to operate online businesses safely and securely under a Trust hierarchy. It provides services which ensure the security and safety of commerce and communications, addressing issues such as authentication, confidentiality or privacy, non-repudiation, and data integrity over the Internet.

NIFTeTRUST, now working with DigiCert and Sectigo for internationally trusted PKI certificates. Besides that, we have our own indigenous build private CA hierarchy setup that offers the same features.

On this historical occasion, NIFT congratulate Electronic Certification Accreditation Council (ECAC) to establish Public Key Infrastructure for globally recognized National Root Certification Authority. This will enable Pakistan to enter into the league of technology-enable nations of the world. This National Root CA will aid interpretability of trust to local indigenously build CAs in a hierarchical manner where National Root CA will act as the final point of trust.

IMRAN ASHRAF

Head of PKI Business, NIFT (Pvt) LTD.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022