Certificate authorities verify the owner information of certificates by signing them.
16
votes
3answers
1k views
What happens when an Intermediate CA is revoked?
Currently I'm working on a certificate manager that allows our product to securely connect to remote webservices (over TLS/SSL).
For security, we use Certificate Revocation List checking (or ...
5
votes
1answer
44 views
'Trusted CA Certificates' and 'Trusted remote Certificates'
What is the difference between Trusted CA Certificates and Trusted remote Certificates?
2
votes
1answer
36 views
Use Client Certificate using Self Signed CA while using Web Certificate of a publicly trusted CA
I would like to ask if it is possible to use different CA for the client certificate and the web certificate?
For example, I would use Verisign to sign my web certificate while I use my Self Sign ...
7
votes
1answer
140 views
Does dnssec protect against malicious registrars?
With the recent conspiracy theories around the registrar MarkMonitor Inc., the question arises, if DNSSEC protects against a registrar going malicious (or being attacked).
This is especially ...
8
votes
1answer
215 views
Why can the validity of an SSL certificate exceed the registration period of a domain?
I can understand why one might desire to purchase a certificate for multiple years but I am left wondering why it appears to be possible to obtain a valid certificate for a domain that may have come ...
10
votes
3answers
157 views
Domain name expiration and TLS
If I purchase a domain name that has expired, do I have any assurance that the previous owner does not have a valid HTTPS certificate for the site? In other words, do CAs check domain name expiration ...
5
votes
5answers
159 views
A standard way to manually add a digital signature to a pdf file?
I've created a few certificates to use myself, but I find myself stumped when it comes to creating a certificate which contains a digital signature. First, how would I go about creating a standard ...
2
votes
1answer
75 views
How does an offline CA revoke certificates?
If an RSA private key of a root CA is stored offline, how does it revoke certificates it signs?
From looking at OpenSSL config the default_crl_days option seems to indicate that a CRL must be ...
31
votes
3answers
3k views
Are all SSL Certificates equal?
After running a few tests from Qualsys' SSL Labs tool, I saw that there were quite significant rating differences between a GoDaddy and VeriSign certificate that I have tested against.
Are all SSL ...
5
votes
3answers
86 views
What are the risks of a localhost signed cerificate?
In our company we have an internal CA certificate for signing various things including the proxied (MITM'd) HTTPS connections.
Suppose we use this CA to sign a key for "localhost" for use in ...
8
votes
1answer
177 views
Configure SSL Mutual (Two-way) Authentication
A lot of tutorials, a lot of pages, a lot of question and they differ in implementation of this issue "Configure SSL Mutual (Two-way) Authentication". I have to do it with Linux, and I don't know from ...
2
votes
1answer
40 views
Sending Digital Certificates
I used the makecert tool in order to create:
a self-signed certificate
a server certificate using the self-signed certificate
a client certificate using the self-signed certificate
I then ...
2
votes
1answer
63 views
Security Certificates - Tools to Generate Security Certificates
I want to create a self-signed certificate that will be installed as a trusted certificate authority.
I then want to create another two certificates which are signed using the private key of the ...
1
vote
1answer
99 views
The request was aborted: Could not create SSL/TLS secure channel Exception
Let me explain my situation.
I created a self-signed certificate and installed it in the Trusted Root Certification Authorities section in MMC.
I then created two certificates using the self-signed ...
3
votes
1answer
82 views
Creation and deployment of self-signed certificates for a two-machine scenario
Let us assume that I have two computers:
client
server
Now, in the server computer, I set up a legacy ASMX web service which will going to be used by the client. Before the client can connect to ...
20
votes
7answers
3k views
Where to get an SSL certificate for personal website?
I would like to use https to login to my personal webpage (which is on shared hosting). So I went over to google and started searching for sollutions. Eventualy I found out that I need an SSL ...
10
votes
2answers
165 views
What does having an internal two-tier PKI protect against?
There are a lot of Best Practice documents that recommend having an offline Root CA and an Enterprise Subordinate CA that is signed by the root, for an internal Microsoft AD Certificate Services ...
2
votes
2answers
91 views
Looking for general guidance on securing web API application for client applications and users
I have a web service built with WebAPI that accepts JSON requests and responds accordingly. The core architecture is built but there isn't any authentication/authorization.
After a lot of googling ...
4
votes
2answers
71 views
Using SSL Certification in Multiple Locations
I have some issues with respect to using SSL Certificates. I have a website hosted in UK and I also have an organisation in South Africa hosting my company application online for web access.
The ...
1
vote
1answer
107 views
Why a web server HTTPS certificate can't sign its subdomain HTTPS certificates?
Why having a valid certificate for "exampe.com" I can't make a "child" certificate for "subdomain.example.com"?
What insecurities will arise if browsers start allowing domain's certificates to be ...
4
votes
2answers
684 views
How does DNSSec work? Are there known limitations or issues?
Based on information from this site, DNSSec is needed to protect us from a number of DNS and SSL / TLS hacks, including:
DNS spoofing, especially on wifi or shared medium
Registrars that abuse their ...
7
votes
3answers
1k views
Certificate authorities for a PKI
Some people think the certificate authorities for a PKI should be the government, but others think certificate authorities should be private entities, such as banks, corporations, or schools. What are ...
4
votes
1answer
2k views
What is updated with “Update Root Certificates” enabled? What is the equivalent in Windows 2008R2?
What root certificates are/are not updated when the following checkbox is checked?
Additional questions
If I manually remove a root certificate, will this service replace that very certificate?
...
6
votes
2answers
151 views
Limiting the root certificate chain
I'm playing around with the idea of running a mini-CA with my (hobby) website, likely only used internally with a few select developers for internal emails, client authentication, staging/development ...
1
vote
1answer
66 views
How to have Thunderbird include a root certificate?
An eMail signed via S/MIME also contains the X.509 certificate chain containing the public key in order to directly verify the signature (assuming its issuing CA is deemed trustworthy). The chain does ...
2
votes
2answers
148 views
distribution mechanisms for CRLs
From the X.509 RFC:
DistributionPoint ::= SEQUENCE {
distributionPoint [0] DistributionPointName OPTIONAL,
reasons [1] ReasonFlags OPTIONAL,
cRLIssuer ...
2
votes
1answer
72 views
Certificate Chains When Importing Signed CSR Response
I'm interfacing with a secure web service, and authenticating using a client certificate. I'm confused about step #3 in the client configuration:
Generate a private key into keystore
Generate a CSR ...
0
votes
2answers
92 views
Create a SSL certificate and sign it with a personal certificate which in turn is signed by a certificate authority [duplicate]
I have a personal certificate which is signed by a certificate authority. This certificate is unrestricted with respect to its allowed purposes. Is it possible to create a SSL server certificate on my ...
5
votes
1answer
94 views
Security and authentication problem
We have a sample scenario and we would like to receive some feedback and some solutions regarding possible security schemes.
First of all, lets imagine a real world scenario:
Imagine that a user ...
1
vote
2answers
298 views
How to use a Yubikey NEO (or any OpenPGP card or GnuPG in general) to sign X.509 CSRs?
Since the Yubikey NEO can be used as an OpenPGP card (see here) with three 2048 bit RSA keys, I thought about creating a CA from one of its public keys. Since the private key cannot be extracted ...
3
votes
2answers
91 views
Why are SSL certificates valid only from a certain date?
Each SSL certificate is valid starting from a specific date and up to the expiration date.
What's the point in that "valid from" date? Why do we want a certificate to only be valid after a specific ...
4
votes
4answers
322 views
Does a CA need to have the same type of key as the certificates it is signing? RSA / Elliptic Curve (EC/ECDH/ECDSA)
I am making a CA that I hope to be able to sign RSA and Elliptic Curve-capable (EC) keys with. I was wondering if the best approach was:
CA with RSA keys capable of signing RSA and EC CSRs
CA with ...
3
votes
1answer
150 views
Internal CA for Digital Signature Solution - PKI Based
I'm trying to set up a digital signature solution which would work with a internal PKI.
We have considered Microsoft Certificate Services, but we don't want to rule out any other option to set up a ...
5
votes
3answers
136 views
What is a reasonable expiry for user authentication certificates?
This question is about a nearly decentralized P2P system with a centralized certificate authority where users can authenticate and receive a certificate on their public key and then can authenticate ...
3
votes
4answers
2k views
How are Chrome and Firefox validating SSL Certificates?
How are Chrome and Firefox validating SSL Certificates?
Are they requesting data from an SSL certification website, like GeoTrust, to validate the certificate received from the web server?
41
votes
10answers
2k views
Why do we not trust an SSL certificate that expired recently?
Every SSL certificate has an expiration date. Now suppose some site's certificate expired an hour ago or a day ago. All the software by default will either just refuse to connect to the site or issue ...
3
votes
1answer
92 views
Certification authority only for certain domains
Is it possible to make a certification authority certificate (even unsigned), which only allow to sign certificates for specific domain(s)?
2
votes
1answer
163 views
What Enhanced Key Usages are required for PKI infrastructure tasks? (OIDs for OSPF and CRL signing, etc)
I'm building a constrained PKI that specifies EKUs for the the entire hierarchy and want to document the OIDs required for PKI tree maintenance tasks.
I understand that clients may not validate the ...
1
vote
2answers
1k views
Error code: sec_error_untrusted_issuer
I need help with a security issue concerning this code that has just been popping up recently as I visit my favorite websites. Based on some past history I KNOW something is not right, and I am not ...
2
votes
2answers
417 views
Protecting against SSL Strip [duplicate]
I've read you can attack connections using tools like sslstrip, if you are on the same network. So what ensures that our SSL connections remain safe?
Does it depend on the cert strength?
Do you ...
4
votes
1answer
103 views
For a desktop application, why use an SSL certificate from a trusted authority?
When a web browser connects to a server and downloads an SSL certificate, a third-party trusted authority ensures that the client is talking to the host that it's looking for. If the host uses a ...
0
votes
1answer
69 views
Does S/MIME provide means to propagate a certificate's revocation?
Can a revocation certificate for an old X.509 certificate be attached to an email in addition to a replacement certificate in such a way that the client user does not have to manually intervene? Or ...
2
votes
3answers
76 views
Are intermediate signing certs the only secure+practical way to manage OpenVPN client certs?
My organization needs to issue (and revoke) OpenVPN client certificates for people working remotely.
Our system is based on a standard OpenSSL CA setup and the easy-rsa tools, and the whole directory ...
3
votes
4answers
481 views
Is it possible to create a self signed certificate authority?
Would it be possible to create a legitimate certificate with the CA bit set? I dont have a usecase associated with this, I'm merely curious.
To explain my question : Suppose I sign a public ...
10
votes
1answer
337 views
How does OCSP stapling work?
I've been looking into OCSP stapling for HTTPS, which looks pretty interesting. From what I can tell, it's essentially a way of offloading CRLs from the CA to the server, allowing for everything to be ...
1
vote
1answer
181 views
How does a developer interact with Microsoft Certificate *Web Services*
Microsoft Certificate Web Services is a HTTPS web service (WS-Trust) that has no Kerberos dependency and can be used on a variety of devices. This is new in Windows 2008 and is separate from the ...
3
votes
2answers
148 views
SSL Certificate Signing by a CA
Per my understanding about SSL's, a user has to send his CSR to a CA (Verisign) to get it signed, and Verisign will send the sign X.509 certificate in return.
What I don't understand is what, ...
3
votes
1answer
97 views
How can an “alternate” or duplicate HTTPS certificate be used in an attack?
Inspired by an old question from PulpSpy, I'm trying to think of whether this is a significant weakness in the Certificate Authority system. Here are the attack methods that I think would work - ...
5
votes
2answers
161 views
What kind of certificate do I need to be able to sign my own subdomain certificates?
We are making a web-based application that will be installed in intranets as a virtual machine image (we send the user a CD with the virtual machine image, user runs it in a VMWare/VirtualBox/...).
...
2
votes
1answer
110 views
What damage could be done if a malicious certificate had an identical “Subject Key Identifier”?
I'm looking at the the Subject Key Identifier attribute of a CA certificate and am trying to understand the role it plays in validation and infer how validating client software could get it wrong.
...
