personal security environment (PSE)

ThePersonal Security Environment(PSE) is where personal security-related information is stored.

Personal Security Environments are all information of a user that is worth protecting: the cryptographic keys, certificates and some control information concerning the user. Physical carriers of such security information to be kept secret are storage media such as floppy disks, compact discs( CD) or smart cards. Some PSE information may be freely accessible, such as the name or certificate, while others may be PIN or password protected.

The PSE is applied to digitalsignatures, among other things. One interface for PSEs is the Public Key Cryptography Standard( PKCS) in version PKCS#11.