Disaster Coverable PKI Model Utilizing the Existing PKI Structure

A Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) using a certificate has already been widely used in a variety of fields for the provision of security service. Accordingly a Certification Authority (CA) that issues a certificate must securely construct a Certification Authority System and manage it. It is significantly important for a CA to ensure its service to continue to operate properly by preparing for any disaster caused by a CA’s private key compromise no matter what the cause is.

In this paper, we provide the definitions of PKI disaster recovery and PKI business continuity, which are more clear and specific than ever before. We also present three requirements for a PKI model preparing for a disaster. Then we propose a PKI model that ensures business continuity in the event of a disaster in which a CA key is exposed. It is easily applied to the existing PKI structure. We stress that the proposed PKI model in this paper is the first to ensure both applicability to the existing models and business continuity in the event of a disaster.