A Public Key Infrastructure (Pki) for the Higher Education Institutions in Kenya

Abstract

Public-key cryptography is fast becoming the foundation for online commerce and other applications that require security and authentication in an open network. The widespread use of public-key cryptography requires a public-key infrastructure to publish and manage public-key values. Without a functioning infrastructure, public-key cryptography is not any more useful than traditional, secret-key cryptography. This report presents a project that was done to develop a public key infrastructure for the university community in Kenya. Firstly, a survey was conducted on the Kenyan universities to determine whether or not they needed a public key infrastructure. The results of the study showed that universities are experiencing cyber threats and PKI can be used to reduce the threats. This provided a justification for the development of the public key infrastructure and the entire development process is described in the report. With the system developed, users have a web based interface where they can request for and get digital certificates within the university environment. The project also highlights how PKI can be used in the university environment to secure systems and electronic communication. It also highlights on the basic usage of the developed system. The project proposes the adoption of the developed system as the rootCA for the university community in Kenya with each university running its own CA based on the developed architecture.