Flexible Certificate Management for Secure HTTPS Client/Server Communication

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