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When to Choose an Extended Validation Certificate
March 25, 2014 by Wayne Thayer CA/Browser Forum EV SSL/TLS
In our last post, we made a case for using Organizationally Validated (OV) or Extended Validation (EV) certificates for e-commerce, but we didn’t go into detail about the differences between OV and EV. EV certificates provide the highest level of assurance about your business, and they visually indicate this to your site’s visitors. The telltale sign that a business has obtained an EV certificate for their website is commonly referred to as the “green bar” displayed in the browser.

CA Security Council Members Presentation at RSA 2014 Conference: New Ideas on CAA, CT, and Public Key Pinning for a Safer Internet
March 17, 2014 by Kirk Hall (Entrust) Attack CAA CASC Chrome EV Google IETF Microsoft Mis-issued OCSP Revocation RSA SSL/TLS Vulnerability
CA Security Council (CASC) members Trend Micro, Go Daddy, and Symantec participated in a discussion panel at the 2014 RSA Conference in San Francisco on February 24 entitled “New Ideas on CAA, CT, and Public Key Pinning for a Safer Internet.” Panel members included Kirk Hall of Trend Micro (Moderator), Wayne Thayer of GoDaddy (Panelist), and Rick Andrews of Symantec (Panelist). Introduction to the Topic Hall began by introducing the topic – all three alternative technologies (Certificate Transparency or CT, Certificate Authority Authorization or CAA, and Certificate Pinning) are intended to make the internet safer by dealing with mis-issued digital certificates, including so-called “rogue” certs like those obtained by a hacker from the now-defunct Diginotar Certification Authority (CA).

Think Twice Before Using DV for E-Commerce
March 12, 2014 by Dean Coclin DV Encryption EV OV Phishing SSL/TLS
In a previous blog (What Are the Different Types of SSL Certificates?), we described the various types of SSL certificates available from publicly trusted Certificate Authorities (CAs). CAs are often asked by their customers which certificate type should be used for websites conducting E-Commerce, rather than for just encryption of sensitive data. For the latter case, a Domain Validated (DV) certificate will work fine. A DV cert allows for encryption to take place between the browser and the server.

Pros and Cons of Single-Domain, Multi-Domain, and Wildcard Certificates
February 26, 2014 by Wayne Thayer Microsoft SSL/TLS
We have previously written about the different types of SSL certificates, but in that article we focused on validation levels. A recent post on LinkedIn highlighted the fact that there is another dimension that we haven’t yet explored. SSL certificates come in three basic packages: “single-domain” certificates that can only be used on one specific website, “multi-domain” certificates that can be used on more than one website, and “wildcard” certificates that can be used on any website within a specific domain name.

Bogus SSL Certificates
February 20, 2014 by Bruce Morton (Entrust) Attack Google MITM SSL/TLS
Netcraft has published an article stating they have found many bogus SSL certificates. In this case, a bogus certificate is self-signed (i.e., not issued from a legitimate certification authority) and replicates an SSL certificate of a large, popular website. This type of bogus SSL certificate could be used for a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack. In this scenario, the attacker needs to gain a position that will allow them to intercept traffic and make you to go to their site instead of the real site.

Ten Steps to Take If Your Website Is Compromised
February 12, 2014 by Wayne Thayer CSR Encryption Google Malware SSH SSL/TLS Vulnerability
After the news broke that 40 million credit card numbers were stolen from Target in a data breach of epic proportions, many of their customers went to work checking their accounts for fraudulent purchases and replacing cards we’d used recently at Target. These have become standard responses to news of this sort. In much the same way, there are some common actions that you should be aware of if your website becomes compromised.

Always-On SSL, Part II
February 5, 2014 by Ben Wilson Encryption Firefox Mixed Content Policy Qualified SSL/TLS
The SSL/TLS protocol has more to offer than just providing you with transmission encryption. Its main benefit is that it provides a way for third parties to authenticate connections to your website over the Internet. A user who can connect to your site and retrieve information via SSL/TLS will have greater assurance and trust that information came from you. The point of Always-On SSL is that once a user is able to create an authenticated connection to your point of presence via https, then he or she should not be bounced back outside of that zone of protection.

Why We Need to Move to SHA-2
January 30, 2014 by Bruce Morton (Entrust), Clayton Smith (Entrust) Attack SHA2 SSL/TLS
Previously, we advised that the SSL industry must move to the SHA-2 hashing algorithm for certificate signatures. We thought it would be helpful to provide the reasoning behind the position. In the context of SSL, the purpose of a hashing algorithm is to reduce a message (e.g., a certificate) to a reasonable size for use with a digital signature algorithm. The hash value, or message digest, is then signed to allow an end-user to validate the certificate and ensure it was issued by a trusted certification authority (CA).

CA Day in Berlin
January 24, 2014 by Dean Coclin eIDAS ETSI EV Microsoft PKI Qualified Root Program RSA SSL/TLS TSP
“CA Day” (also known as CA Conformity Assessment) was hosted by the German company TuVIT in Berlin on January 16, 2014. In attendance were approximately 100 people from mostly European CAs. Under the European regulatory framework, CAs are included in a group referred to as “Trust Service Providers” or “TSPs.” CASC members in attendance at CA Day were Symantec, Digicert and Comodo. The dominant theme for this CA Day was the draft Regulation on Electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market (eIDAS) and upcoming changes in EU regulations for Qualified Certificates, which was briefed by Gerard Galler from the European Commission and discussed in greater detail by several European TSPs.

Always-On SSL, Part I
January 16, 2014 by Rick Andrews Encryption Google Identity Microsoft Mixed Content OpenSSL SSL/TLS
There is no doubt that content owners and publishers have a duty to encourage trust and the confidence during internet usage by adopting security best practices. If a customer believes that their data and identity are safe and protected, they are more inclined to continue their online transactions. Industry best practices for website protection should be vendor-neutral, easy to implement, and globally accessible. Websites should take all the reasonable steps possible to adopt best practices in secure design and implementation, and this includes using Always-On SSL across the entire website.

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