Canadian Health Information Management Association Practice Exam

What does PKI stand for in the context of digital signatures?

1. Biometrics

2. Public Key Infrastructure

3. Redundancy

4. Source code

The correct answer is: Public Key Infrastructure

Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is an essential framework in the realm of digital signatures and cryptography. It provides the necessary technology, policies, and procedures that enable secure communication through the use of asymmetric cryptography, which is fundamental for digital signatures. In this context, PKI facilitates the creation, management, distribution, usage, and revocation of digital certificates. These digital certificates establish the identity of individuals or entities and the public keys that correspond to their private keys, thereby ensuring that a digital signature can be trusted. When a user digitally signs a document, they use their private key, and recipients can verify this signature using the corresponding public key that is typically distributed within the PKI framework. The incorrect options touch on topics related to security or programming but do not specifically relate to the framework that supports digital signatures. Biometrics refers to identification technologies using physical characteristics, redundancy typically pertains to data backup and fail-safes, while source code relates to programming rather than the infrastructure that supports secure electronic transactions.