1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of secure electronic messaging and in particular to management and transfer of Certificates between secure messaging clients.
2. Description of the State of the Art
Most known secure messaging clients, including for example e-mail software applications operating on desktop computer systems, maintain a data store, or at least a dedicated data storage area, for secure messaging information such as Certificates (“Certs”). A Cert normally includes the public key of an entity as well as identity information that is bound to the public key with one or more digital signatures. In Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension (S/MIME) messaging, for example, a public key is used to verify a digital signature on a received secure message and to encrypt a session key that was used to encrypt a message to be sent. In other secure messaging schemes, public keys may be used to encrypt data or messages. If a public key is not available at the messaging client when required for encryption or digital signature verification, then the Cert must be loaded onto the messaging client before these operations can be performed. Normally, each messaging client establishes communications with a Cert source to obtain any required Certs and manages its own Certs and private keys independently of other messaging clients. However, when a user has more than one messaging client, operating on a desktop or laptop personal computer (PC) and a wireless mobile communication device, for example, then Certs must typically be loaded onto each messaging client from the Cert source.
Therefore, there remains a need for a messaging client with a Cert management and transfer mechanism that simplifies Cert management and loading.
There remains a related need for a Cert management and loading system and method.