Certificate authority (CA) meaning and context

Certificate authority (CA)

A certificate authority (CA) is an entity or key hierarchy that issues digital certificates binding public keys to identities under defined rules. Clients use configured trust anchors to decide whether a certificate chain is acceptable; trust depends on the certificate, validation, and client configuration.

Also known as CA, proxy CA.

Updated October 10, 2026

Why it matters in practice

Clients trust the proxy's public CA certificate to validate replacement server certificates for inspected HTTPS. This is not a client-authentication certificate for mutual TLS. Keep the CA's private signing key on the proxy; install only the public certificate in intended client environments.

Example

A test client adds the proxy’s public CA certificate to its trust store so it can validate the proxy-issued certificate for api.example.com.

Educational note

This definition is general information, not legal advice. It may omit facts that matter to a specific situation and does not establish or guarantee compliance.