Introduction: The Need for Secure Communications
Imagine you're running an e-commerce platform that processes thousands of payments daily. Each payment transaction needs to be secure, authentic, and tamper-proof. This is where request signing certificates come into play. Let's understand this through a real-world scenario.
Real-World Scenario: E-commerce Payment Processing
Consider an e-commerce application processing a $500 payment:
- A customer places an order
- Your application needs to send this payment request to a payment gateway
- The payment gateway needs to be absolutely certain that:
- The request truly came from your application (authenticity)
- The payment amount wasn't modified in transit (integrity)
- No sensitive data was exposed (confidentiality)