Importance

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Abstract

A public key management infrastructure (104) is shared by at least two users (102). A method (300) for managing risk arising from a user's use of the shared public key management infrastructure (104) includes the following steps. The user (102) is associated (301) with a digital certificate (200) which is issued and digitally signed by a certification authority (CA). The digital certificate (200) represents that the user (102) is bound to a public key (210) corresponding to a private key held by the user (102); the public key (210) and the private key form a key pair for use in public-key cryptography. The digital certificate (200) further includes an access label (216), which may identify the domain (105) within the public key management infrastructure (104) which the user (102) is authorized to access and/or the privileges which the user (102) is authorized to exercise. The user's identity and the validity of the digital certificate (200) are established (303,305). The access label (216) is read (304) from the user's digital certificate (200), and the user's use of the public key management infrastructure (104) is controlled (306) based upon the access label (216).

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First Claim