Certificates; Chapter 21 Certificates; Overview; What You Can Do In This Chapter - ZyXEL Communications SBG3500-N000 User Manual

21.1 Overview

The SBG3500-N Series can use certificates (also called digital IDs) to authenticate users.
Certificates are based on public-private key pairs. A certificate contains the certificate owner's
identity and public key. Certificates provide a way to exchange public keys for use in authentication.

21.1.1 What You Can Do in this Chapter

• The Local Certificates screen lets you generate certification requests and import the SBG3500-
N Series's CA-signed certificates
• The Trusted CA screen lets you save the certificates of trusted CAs to the SBG3500-N Series
(Section 21.4 on page

21.2 What You Need to Know

The following terms and concepts may help as you read through this chapter.
Certification Authority
A Certification Authority (CA) issues certificates and guarantees the identity of each certificate
owner. There are commercial certification authorities like CyberTrust or VeriSign and government
certification authorities. The certification authority uses its private key to sign certificates. Anyone
can then use the certification authority's public key to verify the certificates. You can use the
SBG3500-N Series to generate certification requests that contain identifying information and public
keys and then send the certification requests to a certification authority.

21.3 The Local Certificates Screen

Click Security > Certificates to open the Local Certificates screen. This is the SBG3500-N
Series's summary list of certificates and certification requests.
C
HAPTER
(Section 21.4 on page
273).
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Certificates

273).
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