<p>Certificate management is a crucial element in PKI implementations, which includes certificate generation, distribution, storage, and revocation. Most of the existing research has been focusing on the security aspect or the functionality and the structure of certificate management systems. Very little has looked at the actual user requirements for the system and how users can use the system conveniently and practically, which is actually a very important factor for the whole security system to work properly and to be widely accepted.</p><p>In this thesis we have designed a framework that provides a flexible certificate management for different security levels according to user requirements and situations, and with a user-friendly interface. A certificate management system CSA (Certificate Server Adapter) is implemented for HP OpenView Operations for Windows (OVO/Windows), which is a management software product provided by Hewlett-Packard. The CSA helps OVO/Windows to provide secure HTTPS client/server communication. Tests show that it offers a good enough security for all situations without compromise and, at the same time, the best convenience and flexibility are achieved. However, the CSA can be further improved to have a lifetime management of the created certificates, an enhanced user interface, and an API to plug-in other PKI solutions.</p>

Certificate management is a crucial element in PKI implementations, which includes certificate generation, distribution, storage, and revocation. Most of the existing research has been focusing on the security aspect or the functionality and the structure of certificate management systems. Very little has looked at the actual user requirements for the system and how users can use the system conveniently and practically, which is actually a very important factor for the whole security system to work properly and to be widely accepted. In this thesis we have designed a framework that provides a flexible certificate management for different security levels according to user requirements and situations, and with a user-friendly interface. A certificate management system CSA (Certificate Server Adapter) is implemented for HP OpenView Operations for Windows (OVO/Windows), which is a management software product provided by Hewlett-Packard. The CSA helps OVO/Windows to provide secure HTTPS client/server communication. Tests show that it offers a good enough security for all situations without compromise and, at the same time, the best convenience and flexibility are achieved. However, the CSA can be further improved to have a lifetime management of the created certificates, an enhanced user interface, and an API to plug-in other PKI solutions.

Certificate Authorities (CAs) carry a huge responsibility in today's internet security landscape as they issue certificates that establish secure end-to-end connections. This thesis conducts a policy review and survey of CAs' Certificate Policies and Certificate Practice Statements to find similarities and differences that could lead to possible vulnerabilities. Based on this, the thesis then presents a taxonomy-based analysis as well as comparisons of the top CAs to the Baseline Requirements. The main areas of the policies that were focused on are the issuance, revocation and expiration practices of the top 30 CAs as determined by the use of Tranco's list. We also determine the top CA groups, meaning the CAs whose policies are being used by the most other CAs as well as including a top 100 CAs list. The study suggests that the most popular CAs hold such a position because of two main reasons: they are easy to acquire and/or because they are connected to several other CAs.  The results suggest that some of the biggest vulnerabilities in the policies are what the CAs do not mention in any section as it puts the CA at risk for vulnerabilities. The results also suggest that the most dangerous attacks are social engineering attacks, as some of the stipulations for issuance and revocations make it possible to pretend to be the entity of subscribes to the certificate rather than a malicious one.