It is imperative that you have complete control over access to the private key of the SSL certificate. If the private key is in a safe place and not accessible to unauthorized persons, this guarantees the security of the personal information of all users of your site.
If you do not know where your private key is stored, in this article you will find information on where to find it if necessary, how to ensure its security, and how to create a new key in case of loss or compromise of the previous one.
Secure SSL private key
Organizations that issue SSL security certificates do not have access to your private (or private) encryption key - and should not - since private keys are created at the user level, that is, on your server or computer. Even if you generate a CSR request and a private key on our website, you must save it to yourself, since information about the key is not stored on our server.
The two main factors that determine the cryptographic security of a private key are the number and the random sequence of primes used to create it. Essentially, a private key is a file with a set of randomly generated numbers. The confidentiality of this information is a guarantee of the security of your key throughout the entire period of using the SSL certificate.
To ensure the safety of your private key, access to it should be allowed only to those members of your organization who really need it, for example, the system administrator who installs the SSL certificate. In addition, it is recommended that you change the private key (and reissue the corresponding SSL certificate) whenever someone who has access to it leaves your organization.
How do I find my SSL private key?
Your private key is usually created at the moment when you generate a CSR request, or just before that. If you are using OpenSSL to manage your private keys (for example, you are using Debian or Red Hat-based Linux distributions), then when you run the OpenSSL req command, the private key is usually stored in the same directory where the command was initiated.
If you are using Microsoft IIS web server, then your SSL private key is stored in a hidden folder on the server that sent the SSL certificate request (also called Certificate Signing Request, or CSR for short). If installed correctly, the server certificate will match the private key. If the private key is missing, this could mean:
- The certificate was not installed on the server used to generate the CSR request (relevant for Microsoft IIS servers and some others).
- A pending CSR request was dropped by the IIS web server.
- The certificate was installed using the Certificate Import Wizard, not using IIS.
Different devices and servers use different methods for storing and generating private keys. It is often difficult to determine the location of the private key on the server. Reading your device's documentation is the fastest way to figure out exactly where the private keys are stored on your server.
How do I create a private key?
If you could not find your SSL private key or have not yet generated one, you will need to do this if you want to obtain an SSL certificate. Typically, the private key must be created on the server on which you plan to install the certificate. Moreover, it must be created before generating a CSR request or together with it, if your device allows it. Some programs automate these tasks, which greatly speeds up the entire process.
To issue an SSL certificate, the certification center "signs" your CSR request, which is why when you issue a certificate, you will be told about generating a CSR request for an SSL certificate, and not about creating a private key. It is important for you to understand that creating a CSR request also means creating a private key.
Only one private key matches a specific CSR request. Therefore, if you have lost the private key (did not save it or accidentally deleted it), you need to initiate the SSL certificate reissue with a new private key. For this, accordingly, you need to create a new CSR request.
SSL certificate providers must provide information about the generation of the private key and CSR request. You can find instructions on how to create a CSR request and a private key on our website.
You can also use the service to create a private key and CSR request on our website. To do this, you must fill in the appropriate fields in the form in the Latin alphabet, as shown in the image:
It is important to indicate the abbreviated name of the country in capital letters in the country field. Next, you should fill in the city and region in which you live or in which your organization is registered, if you order the certificate as a legal entity. If you are ordering an OV SSL certificate with company verification or an even more reliable EV SSL certificate with extended verification, it is important that the filled in data matches the information in your company registration documents. If you order a simple certificate, this is not so important, the main thing is not to leave empty fields.
Also, when filling out the form, it is better not to use special characters, since not all CAs accept CSR requests containing them. In the "Domain name" field, enter the domain for which you are issuing an SSL certificate. If you ordered
What types of address patterns can be given to vanitygen for matching?
Can make selections for simple prefixes and regular expressions. The prefix is \u200b\u200bthe line from which the address begins. When an address with a prefix is \u200b\u200bselected, Vanitygen checks that such a prefix is \u200b\u200bpossible in principle and will give an estimate of the difficulty of such a match. By default, the prefix is \u200b\u200bcase sensitive, but you can use the –i key for case insensitive searches. Regular expressions are filter patterns. They are very powerful and can be used to match prefixes, suffixes, keys of different lengths and match character sequences, etc. To use regular expressions, specify the –r switch. Unfortunately, regular expression matching is very slow and the complexity greatly affects the speed of searching for keys. Therefore, regular expressions should only be used if required. Regular expressions will not work efficiently with oclvanitygen, as oclvanitygen currently cannot handle regular expressions on the GPU.
How can I specify a list of templates?
Vanitygen can search a list of templates from the command line or from a file using the –f switch. The source file should be formed so that each template starts on a new line. Once it finds a match for a given pattern, vanitygen will stop looking for other matches for that pattern. Use the –k switch to search for multiple matches.
Can I use Vanitygen to find someone else's private key knowing their bitcoin address?
Sure! In fact, Vanitygen is a key guessing app. However, it will take an unacceptably large amount of time to find a fully matching bitcoin address, even using all the computing power on the planet.
How can I build vanitygen from source?
All of this is specified in the INSTALL file in the source distribution.
How fast can I expect to find keys from device X?
Some rough estimates:
Dual-core desktop CPUs, 32-bit mode: 100-250K keys / sec.
Dual-core desktop CPUs, 64-bit mode: 150-450 thousand keys / sec
Quad-core desktop CPUs, 32-bit mode: 200-400K keys / sec
Quad-core desktop CPUs, 64-bit mode: 300-750 thousand keys / sec
NVIDIA GT200 GPUs: up to 6.5M keys / sec
AMD Radeon 58XX, 68XX GPUs: up to 23.5M keys / sec.
AMD Radeon 69XX GPUs: up to 19.5M keys / sec.
vanitygen performs many large integer arithmetic operations, and running the utility on a 64-bit system gives a significant increase in key lookup speed, approximately 50% increase over 32-bit. For 64-bit Windows, assuming no GPU is used, remember to use vanitygen64.exe.
Radeon 58XX beats Radeon 69XX. Oclvanitygen uses integer multiplication, and the Radeon 58XX performs multiplication in parallel with other operations. In the same amount of time, the Radeon 5830 will surpass the Radeon 6970.
In custom builds, CPU performance will be less than expected if the old version of OpenSSL libraries (<1.0.0d) либо не собирались с включённой оптимизацией.
How to protect the address generated by this program? Can someone figure out my private key and steal my BTC?
Vanitygen uses OpenSSL to generate random numbers. This is the same RNG (random number generator) used in bitcoin and most servers using HTTPS. They are regarded as well studied. On Linux, RNGs are taken from / dev / urandom. Guessing the private key for the address picked up by vanitygen is no easier than guessing the private key generated by the bitcoin application itself. Vanitygen uses a random number generator to generate the private key and addresses, comparing the resulting addresses against the original pattern. It updates the private key after 10,000,000 unsuccessful brute-force attempts (100M for oclvanitygen), or until a match is found
What options can be set with Vanitygen keys?
V Verbose output -q Quiet output -i Case-insensitive prefix search -k Keep pattern and continue search after finding a match -N Generate namecoin address -T Generate bitcoin testnet address -X
Can I search for addresses together?
Private keys are one of the most important components of the cryptocurrency network and have been present in the system since its inception. Modern wallets relieve users of the need to understand the device of private keys and their purpose. However, as practice shows, often people who actively use cryptocurrencies find themselves in situations that require basic knowledge of the device and the principle of operation of a private key. Let's consider in detail this component of blockchain systems and its features. For example, let's take a classic network - bitcoin, which is essentially the basis for the vast majority of cryptocurrencies.
In the bitcoin network, a private key is just a set of numbers from 1 to 1077. This range of numbers is so large that in practice, it is practically infinite and if a person had an infinite supply of time and could go through a trillion private keys in one second, then on picking all of them would take a million times longer than the age of our universe. The large number of possible private key options play a critical role in securing the Bitcoin network.
When creating a bitcoin wallet, a special file is created on the computer, containing two entries: private key (private key, PRIV) and public key (public key, PUB). And if the private key is generated by chance, then the public one is created by receiving the hash from the PRIV. Figuratively speaking, it looks like a regular key that is inserted into the keyhole, if the private key matches the public key and, when recalculated, these two indicators correspond to each other, then the network determines the cryptocurrency as belonging to a specific user and provides the opportunity to carry out a transaction.
Relationship between bitcoin address and private key
A Bitcoin address is generated based on a public and private key. The hash-sum is calculated from the keys taken as a basis and the address is obtained in the form of a set of numbers and letters of the Latin alphabet.
The address is required in order to receive cryptocurrency or make a transfer to another user. Simply put, this is the path to the location of BTC in a kind of ledger. It is extremely important that it does not contain information about private and public keys, they are unknown to the network, so you need to store them in a safe place inaccessible to anyone. Transferring the address to another user is absolutely safe for the owner of the wallet, since the hash is designed in such a way that it is impossible to obtain a public and even more so a private key from it. All computers connected to the bitcoin network know about the relationship between public and private keys, which makes it possible to use keys to sign transactions.
Transaction Verification
Before a transaction is made, the transaction data, including the address, the public and private keys are sent to the blockchain, which verifies the information received. The check consists of several stages:
- The blockchain checks if there is a record of receiving a specific bitcoin by the user;
- The recipient's address is checked, if there is a typo in it, the transaction is canceled;
- The digital signature provided by the btc owner is verified (checking the compatibility of the private key with the public key), and the operation is recorded in the blockchain.
After a check has been made in one block and the payment has been confirmed, the data is sent to other nodes of the blockchain, where the operation is repeated. After several blocks have confirmed the transaction, the payment is considered complete.
All transactions that have the correct signatures are accepted by the bitcoin network and therefore anyone who owns someone else's private key can steal funds from the wallet. Attackers usually steal private keys from storage media (flash) or through communication channels. Therefore, it is necessary to adhere to strict security measures when storing and transporting the private key. Software wallets contain private keys in their wallet file on the computer's hard drive in a standard directory, which is the main target of cybercriminals, so the main task of the owner of a cryptocurrency is to ensure reliable protection of their private keys. Hardware solutions are great for this purpose, especially if the wallet contains a significant amount of cryptocurrency.
Conclusion
In simple words, blockchain is an open communication network between users, which is protected by a powerful cryptography tool using public keys. Unlike other networks where only passwords and logins are used in the blockchain, digital signatures are used for protection, which are created after the interaction of unique public and private keys.
Keep up to date with all the important events of United Traders - subscribe to our
