Understanding Microsoft Cryptographic Service Providers
A common question I often get from customers and students is about Microsoft’s Cryptographic Service Providers (CSP). The CSPs are responsible for creating, storing and accessing cryptographic keys – the underpinnings of any certificate and PKI. These keys can be symmetric or asymmetric, RSA, Elliptical Key or a host of others such as DES, 3DES, […]
Microsoft January Patches and CVE-2020-0601
After two days of forewarning, Microsoft released its January 2020 collection of updates for “Patch Tuesday.” It had been leaked that there was a critical flaw in the crypt32.dll library that could represent a serious security flaw for the entire world. The crypt32.dll library provides the foundation for cryptographic operations in Windows and is often […]
Field Report – PKI Spotlight Rocked My World Again
This is another blog in the series about how PKI Spotlight is changing how customers realize improved operational efficiency, enhanced security, and better visibility of their PKI and HSM key management environments, and how it’s changing our world as PKI practitioners. All the names and specifics are redacted to protect the confidentiality of all involved […]
Announcing the Online PKI Assessmental Portal
Editor’s Note (2025 Update): The Online PKI Assessment Portal is no longer offered. Its capabilities have evolved into PKI Spotlight—a modern platform designed to give you continuous visibility into the health and security of your PKI. If you’re considering an assessment today, Spotlight is where to start. Contact us to learn how you can get […]
Accessing and using certificate private keys in .NET Framework/.NET Core
This blog post is about programming and its purpose is to have a link to direct developers for explanation. Inspired from this list: Casting private key to RSACryptoServiceProvider not working Best way to initiate RSACryptoServiceProvider from x509Certificate2? Unable to cast object of type ‘RSACng’ to type ‘System.Security.Cryptography.RSACryptoServiceProvider’ RSACryptoServiceProvider not working in .net core Getting RSA […]