Trust but verify: when CAs fall short

We’ve recently experienced yet another case of a root certificate authority (CA from now on) losing control of its own certificates. And yet again, we have been waiting for either the CA or the browser to do something about it. This whole mess stems, once again, from both a governance and a technical problem. First, only the very same CA that issued a certificate can later revoke it. Second, although web browsers implement several techniques to check the certificate’s revocation status, errors in the procedure are rarely considered hard failures.

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Story added 19. February 2013, content source with full text you can find at link above.