This document presents a framework to assist the writers of certificate policies or certification practice statements for certification authorities and public key infrastructures. In particular, the framework provides a comprehensive list of topics that potentially (at the writer's discretion) need to be covered in a certificate policy definition or a certification practice statement.

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This Framework for Designing Cryptographic Key Management Systems (CKMS) contains topics that should be considered by a CKMS designer when developing a CKMS design specification. For each topic there are one or more documentation requirements that need to be addressed by the design specification. Thus, any CKMS that adequately addresses these requirements would have a design specification that is compliant with this Framework. Certain commercial entities, equipment, or materials may be identified in this document in order to describe an experimental procedure or concept adequately. Such identification is not intended to imply recommendation or endorsement by the National Institute of Standards and technology, nor is it intended to imply that the entities, materials, or equipment are necessarily the best available for the purpose.

The advances in computer and communications technologies and trends toward standardization, interoperability, and connectivity pose a growing security threat to Automatic Data Processing (ADP) and telecommunications systems that process sensitive or classified information. The activation of a threat could result in: disclosure, modification, or destruction of sensitive or classified information; modification to hardware or software; and/or nonavailability of the system services.