Certificates Question

I think I'm missing something when it comes to ADCS. I understand how to create CAs, issue certificates, autoenrollment, templates, and most of the other things I've read about certificate services.

However, I don't understand why I'm doing all this. Example: I issued a certificate to my user account in AD. Now what? With most of the other services, I understand the purpose behind the infrastructure I'm setting up. But with CS, I'm left wondering what I can do with this now that I've setup the infrastructure for it.

Does anyone have some resources to explain exactly what you do AFTER you get your CA setup and your certificates issues?

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Comments

netsysllc

Certificates are there to support other services. They could be for a vpn connection, authentication, using Rights Managment on documents, encrypting emails and many other things. Honestly I have little use for them in the real world other than protecting websites, but I do not manage networks for huge companies, only the SMB space. I doubt you would ever see them used that way in a company of less than 1000 employees

pumbaa_g

One word answer, security. Adding certificates opens up avenues for securing data over your network in many ways. Few examples
1. IPSEC 2. HTTPS & SSL 3. Email Encryption 4. VPN 5. AD RMS 6. Bit Locker & Drive Encryption
It is a enterprise tool and is really useful if you want to implement a good infosec policy in your environment
It is an acquired taste, read it up you may end up liking it