Can Anybody Tell Me About How To Determine Key Length And Smart Cards For Certificate Templates?

Key length determination: There is one or multiple cryptographic algorithms are used by each CSP. A CSP may have got a digital signature also. However it's you who'll make the decision regarding the key size allowed for a given certificate template. You may opt for shorter keys and you may opt for larger keys also. But there are some tradeoffs involved that you've to take into consideration before opting for either shorter or larger keys.

For example; larger keys are advantageous from security point of view as these keys provide more protection but generating and using larger keys is a time-consuming process. Shorter keys may don't offer same level of protection as do larger keys but such keys are easier to generate and use. In general a key size should be chosen that may offer reasonable security without affecting performance.

Smart Card Usage Determination: Every smart card is associated with at one CSP. The CSP associated with a smart card should be implemented by a certificate template. Without implementing CSP a smart card will not work. Therefore, before deploying a certificate template as associated CSP for a smart card to be used must be implemented.