CompTIA Network+ Practice Test

Which entity provides additional trust in the PKI system?

1. RDP Servers

2. Certificate Authorities (CA)

3. Firewall Systems

4. Data Encryption Services

The correct answer is: Certificate Authorities (CA)

The correct answer is Certificate Authorities (CA) because they play a crucial role in the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) by establishing and managing trust relationships. A Certificate Authority is a trusted third party that issues digital certificates to individuals, organizations, or devices. These certificates serve as a means to verify the identity of the entities using public-key cryptography. When a CA issues a certificate, it effectively vouches for the identity of the certificate holder, providing assurance that the public key contained in the certificate genuinely belongs to that entity. This trust is fundamental for secure communications over networks, as it enables parties to authenticate each other and ensure that keys used for encryption and decryption are legitimate. In contrast, while other options like RDP servers, firewall systems, and data encryption services play important roles in overall network security and management, they do not inherently provide the trust framework that the PKI system depends on. RDP servers facilitate remote connections, firewalls control traffic based on security rules, and data encryption services protect data from unauthorized access but none of these directly contribute to the establishment of trust in the identity of users or devices, as the CA does.