Security+: Certificates and formats

What are the other Labels used in the Certificate, header and footer ? Eg: -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- MIIDdTCCAl2gAwIBAgILBAAAAAABFUtaw5QwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEFBQAwVzELMAkG ... additional ASCII Characters here... HMUfpIBvFSDJ3gyICh3WZlXi/EjJKSZp4A== -----END CERTIFICATE--------

CERTIFICATE, PUBLIC KEY, PRIVATE KEY, ENCRYPTED PRIVATE KEY, CERTIFICATE REQUEST.

Is DER a Certificate-Format or Certificate-Type ?

DER is Certificate Format

CER format

Similar to DER, but this certificate format allows cert contents to stored as ASCII files

DER format

Within the RSA, PKCS#1 and SSL/TLS communities use this encoding of ASN.1 is used to represent keys, certificates and such in a portable format. It is a data structure in Binary format

If a certificate is having the '.cer' extension, which Certificate Type does it use ?

Certificate Type: CER or PEM

Certificate format: DER (extension: .der)

Format: Binary - used: for binary certificates types - contents: can vary

Certificate Type: P12, PFX (extension: .p12, .pfx)

Format: Binary (DER) - used: to store private key with the Certificate - contents: can contain Certificates, certificate chains, and private keys

Certificate Type: PEM (extension: .pem, .cer, .crt, .key)

Format: Binary (DER) or ascii (CER) - used: can be used for any certificate purpose - contents: Server certificate, Certificate chains, keys, CRL

Certificate format: CER (extension: .cer)

Format:ASCII - used: for ascii certificates - contents: can vary

Certificate Type: P7B (extension: .p7b, .p7c)

Format:ASCII (CER) - used: to share public key - contents: can contain Certificates, certificate chains, CRL, but never the private key

Is CRT a Certificate-Format or Certificate-Type?

Neither. Although PEM types, have an extension of '.crt'

Is PEM a Certificate-Format or Certificate-Type?

PEM is Certificate-Type

Extensions of PEM file

cert file (extension: .pem, .cer, .crt, .key)