PKI Consortium blog

Posts by tag EV

    My Website’s SSL Certificate is Fine; Why Do Browsers Downgrade the Security Indicators For My Site?
    April 1, 2015 by Rick Andrews Attack Chrome Encryption EV IETF RC4 SSL/TLS
    All the major browsers provide “security user interface”, meaning visual elements to inform the user of the security of their connection to the web page they’re visiting. Up until now, those interface elements were tied to the use of SSL/TLS certificates served by the web site. For example, if you went to http://www.example.com, no special elements would be displayed, but if you visited https://www.example.com, you would see a lock icon indicating the presence of a trusted SSL/TLS certificate.

    2015 – Looking Back, Moving Forward
    January 6, 2015 by Bruce Morton (Entrust) Apple Attack CA/Browser Forum CAA Chrome Code Signing EV Firefox Forward Secrecy Google IETF Malware Microsoft MITM Mozilla OpenSSL PKI Policy RSA SHA1 SSL 3.0 SSL/TLS TLS 1.0 TLS 1.2 TLS 1.3 Vulnerability
    Looking Back at 2014 End of 1024-Bit Security In 2014, the SSL industry moved to issuing a minimum security of 2048-bit RSA certificates. Keys smaller than 2048 are no longer allowed in server certificates. In addition, Microsoft and Mozilla started to remove 1024-bit roots from their certificate stores. Hopefully, the key size change will support users through to 2030. Push to Perfect Forward Secrecy Following the Edward Snowden revelations of pervasive surveillance, there was a big push to configure web servers to support Perfect Forward Secrecy.

    Who Sets the Rules Governing Certification Authorities?
    August 19, 2014 by Kirk Hall (Entrust) CA/Browser Forum Code Signing DV Encryption ETSI EV Google Hash Function Identity IETF Microsoft Mozilla OCSP Policy Revocation Root Program SSL/TLS WebTrust
    Every time something positive is published about SSL and encryption,such as Google’s recent decision making use of https encryption a favorable rating factor for a website, or negative, such as the Heartbleed issue – bloggers and others always post questions about public Certification Authorities (CAs), including general questions on who sets the rules that govern CAs. Some bloggers seem to assume there are no rules or standards, and that CAs can operate without any requirements or limitations at all — that’s incorrect.

    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.

    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.

    How Organizations Are Authenticated for SSL Certificates
    November 22, 2013 by Kirk Hall (Entrust) CA/Browser Forum CSR DV EV Identity OV Phishing Policy SSL/TLS
    Certification Authorities (CAs) are trusted third parties that authenticate customers before issuing SSL certificates to secure their servers. Exactly how do CAs authenticate these organizations? And where are the rules that determine what CAs must do during authentication? The Rules on Customer Authentication In the past, there were no common rules applicable to CAs as to minimum steps required to authenticate a customer before issuing an SSL certificate. Instead, each CA was permitted to create its own authentication processes, and was only required to describe the process in general terms in its public Certification Practice Statement (CPS).

    Certificate Authority Audits and Browser Root Program Requirements
    October 15, 2013 by Kirk Hall (Entrust) AICPA CA/Browser Forum CASC ETSI EV ISO ITU Microsoft Policy Qualified Root Program SSL/TLS WebTrust
    Recent news stories have highlighted the need for strong security in online communications, and use of SSL certificates issued by a publicly trusted Certification Authority (CA) is perhaps the best way to achieve that. But why should the public trust SSL certificates issued from commercial CA roots, which are embedded as trust anchors in web browsers? One answer is because of the multiple layers of standards and tough requirements that all commercial CAs must meet – and for which they are audited every year.

    Firefox 23 Blocks Mixed Content
    August 13, 2013 by Wayne Thayer Chrome Encryption EV Firefox Google Malware Mixed Content Mozilla SSL/TLS
    The latest version of the Firefox Web browser from Mozilla was released on August 6th with a great new security feature called a “mixed content blocker”. In a nutshell, this feature ensures that all of the parts of a secure Website are indeed encrypted via SSL certificates. All of the data on the website is prevented from being intercepted, and it becomes more difficult to add malware into the site’s content.

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