DigiNotar and SSL certificates


Great news! We were pretty sure, but a recent notification from our certificate supplier told us that none of the certificates ordered on behalf of our customers are signed by DigiNotar.

For those of you not aware, DigiNotar is a Certificate Authority who provided signed SSL Certificates against their own trust chain. Which was recognized by all major browsers (including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera) and therefore enhanced the security and browsing experience of many SSL secured sites.

In July 2011– An internal audit discovered an intrusion within DigiNotar’s CA infrastructure indicating a compromise of their cryptographic keys. The breach of these keys resulted in the fraudulent issuance of public key certificates to a several dozen domains including the domain Google.com. Shortly after the incident, DigiNotar revoked all of the certificates in question, conducted an additional external security audit and then attempted to revoke outstanding certificates that were affected.

You can read full details from their official press release

However as analysis continued and the evident scale of the problem increased, many that used DigiNotar as a top level signing CA felt that chain was no longer trustworthy. For those with certificates signed by them this turned into a significant issue  as software developers for the major browsers completely revoked the top level certificate in their browsers, requiring them to purchase new certificates from alternate agencies.

Why is this important to you?

  • This breach highlights the need to be vigilant about your server security
  • SSL enable sites remain one of the most important methods securing browser connections and creating trust to site visitors.
  • You can rest assured that the SSL certificates we provide are secure

If you would like to know more about the SSL certificate options we provide please take a look at our secure SSL Certificate order page, or pop in an email to us directly at support@rimuhosting.com with details on what you would like to know.