What is PKCS and why is it used?
Can you help me in understanding why PKCS is used? My confusion is whether PKCS is used to transfer keys between client and server OR whether it is a standard to encrypt and decrypt the payload.
What is PKCS can be answered as -
PKCS (Public-Key Cryptography Standards) is a set of standards by RSA Security. It has many standards and each of those defining set of protocols, here are some of them: RSA private and public keys for encryption, decryption, signing, and signature verification Protocol for a shared key exchange over an insecure channel Certificate request, extensions, etc Protocol for carrying certificate private keys
etc As you can see, there are plenty of usages for PKCS, I encourage you to read about PKI and these standards and other related concepts in-depth:
- Public key cryptography
- PKCS set of standards
- X509 certificates
- Key-agreement protocol
- Public key infrastructure
- Digital signatures