PKCS

PKCS (Public-Key Cryptography Standards) was introduced by RSA Laboratories. These standards were developed in cooperation with an organized consortium which initially included Microsoft, Apple, Lotus, Sun and DEC. They have been designed for ASCII and binary data, and are also compatible with several other cryptographic standards. The published standards of PKCS are #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #,12, and #15 - #13 and #14 are in the development stage. PKCS #6 is being used less as X.509 version three has become more favored. The common standards of PKCS all use different encryption approaches. PKCS consists of several standards including the Diffie-Helm Key Exchange and RSA. It also specifies an independent algorithm syntax for digital certificates, digital signatures and digital envelopes. RSA Laboratories makes revisions to PKCS documents from time to time. This is done to stay current with the latest developments in cryptography and data security.