ABSTRACT
The main objective of this research is to explore the possibility of using blockchain and smart contracts to provide a digital certificate for secure communication on the internet, which is currently provided by the certificate authority (CA) using Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol based on the X.509 Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) standard. A digital certificate is a trusted certificate that is used to establish a secure connection between a client and a server through the internet. The digital certificates issued by CAs are having security problems, vulnerabilities, double spending, and so on. Blockchains are still in their infancy as far as the digital certificate in the web environment is concerned. This research study analyses the current PKI framework, examines the TLS protocol, checks the functioning of CAs, and explores the possibilities of using blockchain. This research also probes the implementation of smart contract to issue a digital certificate, verify the identity, validate the certificate, and manage the certificate without any third party's approval or intervention.
