Do you know the difference between exporting a certificate with or without a private key? When exporting a digital certificate, you can choose between exporting it with or without a private key. If the certificate you are going to export is for personal use or a backup copy, you must do so with a private key. This key must remain under the exclusive control of its owner. This characteristic allows an electronic signature to univocally identify the signatory, but if the objective is to communicate with someone securely, it is enough to export the digital certificate with the public key and communicate it to this person. The public key is the one that allows the recipient to verify who is the author of the message and the integrity of the data sent. These keys act in a complementary way: what is encrypted by one can only be decrypted by the other.For example, if a sender uses a recipient’s public key to encrypt a message, once encrypted, only the recipient’s private key can decrypt it, as only the recipient knows it. Therefore, the confidentiality of sending the message is achieved, since no one but the recipient can decrypt it.
