This knowledge base expounded by MiniTool Software Ltd. mainly introduces you to a kind of Microsoft Windows utility called – Active Directory Certificate Services, which is in charge of file encryption, mostly applied in Widows servers.
What Is Active Directory Certificate Services?
Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS) is a type of Microsoft product, a “server role that enables you to construct public key infrastructure (PKI) and gives open key cryptography, computerized authentication, and advanced mark abilities for your association.”
In another saying, Microsoft Active Directory Certificate Services is a Windows server designed to issue digital certificates. Certificates have proven to be more secure and easier to use than passwords. When Microsoft recognizes that, it developed AD CS to help Microsoft environments make use of certificate benefits.
What Is Active Directory Certificate Services Used For?
AD CS is used to conduct PKI functions, support personalities, as well as offer other security actions in the Windows environment. It creates, validates, and revokes public key certificates for internal uses of an organization.
Those certificates can be applied to encrypt files (when used with Encryption File System), emails (per S/MIME standard), as well as network traffic (when used by a secure wireless network, virtual private networks, Transport Layer Security protocol, or IPSec protocol), network access protection (NAP), smart card logon, and so on.
The following are the features of Windows Active Directory Certificate Services.
- Certificate authority (CA) including enterprise CA and stand-alone CA.
- Certification authority web enrollment.
- Network device enrollment service.
- Certificate enrollment web service.
- Certificate enrollment policy web service.
- Online responder.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Active Directory Certificate Services
Now, let’s have a look at the benefits and drawbacks of the AD CS service.
Pros of Active Directory Certificate Services
- Enhance security by binding the identity of a person, device, or service to a corresponding private key.
- Enable enterprises to manage the distribution and use of certificates.
- Enable organization with the PKI to secure web servers, authentication, digital signatures, encrypted emails, etc.
- Pull from active directory.
- Leverage existing group policy.
- Automate certificate provisioning and lifecycle management.
- Silent installation.
Cons of Active Directory Certificate Services
- Difficult to use.
- The binding issue with macOS devices.
- Cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.
- Occupy hardware resources.
- Long time to maintain and validate.
AD CS predates Windows Server 2008 but its name was simply Certificate Services. It requires an AD DS infrastructure.
Active Directory Certificate Services Best Practices
For instance, the IT administrator takes advantage of Microsoft Active Directory Certificate Services to handle all things from desktop authentication to file encryption using their own certificate authority.
Windows 11 Assistant Software Recommended
The new and powerful Windows 11 will bring you many benefits. At the same time, it will also bring you some unexpected damages such as data loss. Thus, it is strongly recommended that you back up your crucial files before or after upgrading to Win11 with a robust and reliable program like MiniTool ShadowMaker, which will assist you to protect your increasing data automatically on schedules!
About The Author
Position: Columnist
Helen Graduated from university in 2014 and started working as a tech editor in the same year. Her articles focus on video creation, editing, and conversion. She also has a good knowledge of disk management and data backup & recovery. Through an in-depth exploration of computer technology, Helen has successfully helped thousands of users solve their annoying problems.