PKI Consortium blog

Could Quantum Computing Help Stave Off the Next Great Pandemic?
June 11, 2020 by Patrick Nohe (GlobalSign) Quantum RSA SSL/TLS
As we settle into month two of isolation in the world’s collective battle against the COVID-19 pandemic, one talking point you’ve undoubtedly heard time and again is that this won’t truly be over until there’s a vaccine. A post about how quantum computing could simplify it and reduce the time it takes exponentially.

Preparing for Quantum Computing
April 21, 2020 by Diana Gruhn (Entrust) ECC IETF NIST Quantum RSA
Quantum computing is advancing, and while experts are not sure when there will be a quantum computer powerful enough to break the RSA and ECC cryptographic algorithms that are currently in use, many are operating under the assumption that this can happen within a 10-15 year timeframe.

What Are Subordinate CAs and Why Would You Want Your Own?
June 26, 2019 by Doug Beattie (GlobalSign) CA/Browser Forum Chrome Code Signing CRL ECC eIDAS Encryption EV HSM Identity Microsoft OCSP PKI Policy Revocation RSA S/MIME SSL/TLS
Digital certificate and PKI adoption has changed quite a bit in recent years. Gone are the days where certificates were only synonymous with SSL/TLS; compliance drivers like stronger authentication requirements and digital signature regulations (e.g. eIDAS) have greatly expanded the role of PKI within the enterprise. As PKI usage has expanded, conversation has moved beyond just the number and type of certificates needed and onto deeper dialogue about custom PKI deployments.

2019 – Looking Back, Moving Forward
January 3, 2019 by Bruce Morton (Entrust) Attack CA/Browser Forum Certificate Expiry Chrome Code Signing DV ECC EV Forward Secrecy Identity Mis-issued Phishing PKI Policy Qualified Revocation RSA SSL/TLS TLS 1.0 TLS 1.3 Vulnerability
Looking Back at 2018 2018 was an active year for SSL/TLS. We saw the SSL/TLS certificate validity period drop to 825-days and the mass deployment of Certificate Transparency (CT). TLS 1.3 protocol was finally completed and published; and Chrome status bar security indicators changing to remove “secure” and to concentrate on “not secure.” The CA/Browser Forum has been reformed, the London Protocol was announced and the nearly full distrust of Symantec SSL completed.

2018 – Looking Back, Moving Forward
January 6, 2018 by Bruce Morton (Entrust) Attack CA/Browser Forum CAA Certificate Expiry Chrome ECC Encryption Google Microsoft Mis-issued OV PDF PKI ROCA RSA SSL/TLS TLS 1.3 Vulnerability
Looking Back at 2017 2017 saw the end of SHA-1 in public trust SSL/TLS certificates and the start of Certification Authority Authorization (CAA) allowing domain owners to authorize their CA. A “Not secure” browser indication was propagated to push more websites to support HTTPS. There was also a change in the certification authority (CA) ownership with DigiCert acquiring Symantec’s SSL and related PKI business and Francisco Partners buying Comodo’s CA.

How Does the ROCA Attack Work?
November 9, 2017 by Tim Hollebeek Attack PKI ROCA RSA Web PKI
On October 17th, a group of Czech researchers announced they had found a way to factor the moduli of many RSA public keys generated by hardware produced by Infineon Technologies AG. The technical details were presented in a paper at the 2017 Computer and Communications Security conference, hosted by the Association for Computing Machinery on November 2nd. The technique only works against the key pairs produced by Infineon’s library, because it exploits the unique method they use to generate RSA primes.

Quantum Computing: Real or Exaggerated Threat to the Web PKI?
August 30, 2017 by Dean Coclin, Tim Hollebeek Encryption PKI Quantum RSA SSL/TLS Web PKI
Twenty years ago, paying your phone or electric bill involved receiving it in the mail, writing a check and mailing it back to the company. Today, that has largely been replaced by email and web-based payment submittals. All of this is secured by digital certificates and encryption, which provide privacy and authentication of information transiting the open Internet (aka Web PKI). The web PKI is predominantly secured by RSA encryption algorithms; mathematical theorems which have been improved over time.

2017 – Looking Back, Moving Forward
January 13, 2017 by Bruce Morton (Entrust) 3DES Apple Attack CA/Browser Forum CAA Chrome Code Signing Encryption Firefox Google Identity Malware MITM Policy Revocation RSA SSL 3.0 SSL/TLS TLS 1.3 TSA Vulnerability
Looking Back at 2016 Fortunately, 2016 was not a year full of SSL/TLS vulnerabilities. Although some researchers did prove old cryptography algorithms should be put out to pasture. The year showed the end of public-trusted SHA-1 SSL/TLS certificates. It also showed more transparency should be considered due to issues discovered with a few certification authorities (CAs). The great news is HTTPS is no longer the minority — after 20 years, connections using HTTPS has surpassed HTTP.

Why Is Certificate Expiration Necessary?
October 19, 2016 by Bruce Morton (Entrust) Attack CA/Browser Forum EV Hash Function Identity OCSP Policy RSA SSL/TLS Vulnerability
The Long Life Certificate – Why It Doesn’t Exist Why is certificate expiration even necessary? Wouldn’t it be better if I could just buy a certificate with a long life before expiration? It would really simplify certificate management if it could be installed and forgotten. Simple, no management required, just file-and-forget. Imagine, I’ve been in business, starting say 10 to 15 years ago. I roll out my web pages and secure them with a 20-year-validity SSL certificate.

TLS Certificates on the Web – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
May 17, 2016 by Rick Andrews CA/Browser Forum Code Signing ECC Encryption EV Hash Function PKI Policy RSA SSL/TLS
It might be hard to believe, but the SSL/TLS Ecosystem is nearly 20 years old. It’s time to take stock and see how we’re doing with regards to TLS certificates. In this article, we’ll primarily discuss certificates themselves and not web server configuration, although that is often a source of problems. In the last few years, we’ve endured three major certificate-based migrations: Away from the MD2 and MD5 hash algorithms to SHA-1 Away from small RSA keys to 2048-bit keys or larger Away from the SHA-1 hash algorithm to SHA-256 What’s driving these migrations?