In principle, a Public Key Infrastructure (“PKI”) is a framework for creating a secure method for exchanging information based on public key cryptography. Public key cryptography separates the secret Private Key, which is created and only stored by its owner, from the Public Key, which is published for everybody’s use and reliance. The foundation of a PKI is the Certificate Authority, which issues digital certificates that provide authenticity and trustworthiness of the Public Key.

Thanks to its characteristics, digital certificates are also used to authenticate the identity of entities (organisations, individuals, assets) on an open or public network such as the Internet.

Most business models for PKI are based on revenues from selling a certificate or infrastructure components to produce certificates, renewing a certificate and possibly for verifying a certificate with a central server (Validation Authorities and Certificate Revocation List distributors).

WISeKey started to bring this traditional but renowned PKI technology (which we call PKI 1.0) to the market in a different way than our traditional competitors. The main differentiator of WISeKey is our:

·         Ability to deploy PKI in a low-cost, easy-to-manage model;

·         Ability to leverage the installed base of Windows servers worldwide by developing a mechanism for adding a PKI on top of any Windows server since the 2003 version;

·         Ability to leverage on the tens of thousands of Microsoft partners worldwide to deploy WISeKey’s solution;

·         Ability to adapt and completely tailor the pricing model thanks to own technology, software and operations (as for instance our data centres);

·         Ability to implement non-standard PKI, for instance for Digital Rights Management or mobile telephony.