ITPEC IP October 2025 Question 38
ITPEC IP October 2025 — Question 38 of 100
A self-created certificate does not reliably prove that its public key belongs to the claimed sender — therefore the receiver cannot securely confirm the correct counterpart.
A trusted certificate authority verifies an applicant and signs the certificate, creating a trust chain the receiver can validate. Anyone can instead create a certificate containing an arbitrary name, so a valid signature checked with that certificate proves only that the matching private key made it, not who owns that key.
Answer (a)
Why not others:
- (b) eavesdropping concerns confidentiality and encryption, not whether the certificate has trusted identity validation
- (c) certificates do not control mail delivery or loss
- (d) a signature can still reveal modification; self-signing mainly weakens identity assurance
Key rule: A signature binds data to a key; a trusted CA binds that key to an identity.
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