CIW Web Security Associate 2025 – 400 Free Practice Questions to Pass the Exam

The correct answer is the certificate authority. A certificate authority (CA) is a trusted entity responsible for verifying the identity of individuals or organizations and issuing digital certificates. In the context of an SSL session, these certificates provide assurance that the parties communicating have been authenticated and that the information exchanged is secured.

When a server presents a digital certificate during an SSL handshake, the recipient can verify the certificate's authenticity by checking it against the signature of the CA that issued it. This process ensures that the certificate is valid and that the public key contained within belongs to the legitimate entity it claims to represent. This foundational component of SSL/TLS security underpins trust in online transactions and communications.

In contrast, a Kerberos server is primarily associated with a different authentication framework that uses tickets for secure access within a network, while a certificate revocation entity focuses on managing and validating the status of certificates that may have been compromised or are no longer valid. A certificate repository is a storage entity for digital certificates but does not perform the verification or issuance processes.