PKI Consortium blog

Getting the Most Out of SSL Part 1: Choose the Right Certificate
May 25, 2013 by Wayne Thayer CSR ECC Microsoft RSA SHA2 SSL/TLS

SSL and HTTPS are two of the most common security technologies on the internet today, but at the same time their use can be complex and challenging to get right. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be publishing a series of articles aimed at identifying some of the decisions that need to be made when buying, installing, and using SSL certificates. In this first installment, I’ll discuss some of the issues to consider when buying and requesting a certificate.

The Importance of Revocation Checking Part 2: A Real World Example
March 11, 2013 by Wayne Thayer Attack Code Signing CRL Encryption Identity Malware OCSP Revocation SSL/TLS

Just last week, a new security incident related to certificate revocation checking made headlines. It was discovered that a legitimate website was hosting a malicious Java application that installed malware on the computers of people who visited the site. This comes after recent updates that introduced Security Level settings in Java, and then raised the default from Medium to High. At the high level, users are shown a warning before any unsigned Java code is executed. Unfortunately, this recent incident exposed a method that allows an attacker to bypass the warning.