System Architecture

The Microsoft cryptographic system is composed of a number of different components, as shown in the following illustration. The three executable portions are the application itself, the operating system, and the CSP.

Applications communicate with the operating system through a set of functions known as the cryptographic application program interface (CryptoAPI). The operating system, in turn, communicates with CSPs through a set of functions known as the cryptographic service provider interface (CryptoSPI).

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Note that applications do not communicate with CSPs directly. Instead, all cryptographic function calls are routed through the operating system. A parameter in each CryptoAPI function indicates to the operating system which CSP to use to perform the actual cryptographic operation.

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