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Extended validation certificates

Posted Nov 2, 2006 13:44 UTC (Thu) by gouyou (guest, #30290)
In reply to: Extended validation certificates by gerv
Parent article: Extended validation certificates

Even then, few people actually look at the name attached to an SSL certificate, and many might be surprised at the names that show up if they did.
...which is why the IE UI, at least, puts the company name in the chrome.

Which is a good starting point, but "SecureWebsite Ltd." from US won't be really different than "SecureWebsite Ltd." from Nigeria ... Green bar, names looks ok, let's start phishing :(

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Posted Nov 2, 2006 14:06 UTC (Thu) by gerv (subscriber, #3376) [Link]

You really should read the guidelines and look at IE's UI before commenting :-)

The UI in IE is of the following form:

SecureWebsite Ltd. (US)

so the country of origin is displayed.

Secondly, the certificate will contain (and the CA will hold) sufficient information about SecureWebsite Ltd. to enable the boys in blue in Lagos to track down the people behind it. The guidelines have been designed to raise the cost (in revealed information as well as money) of spoofing them above the possible return from getting a certificate fraudulently. In other words, you can't make them impossible to get round, but you can make it so expensive or time-consuming or dangerous that it's not worth it for the return you'd get from one phishing site.

Note that OCSP is mandatory for EV certificates, so they can be revoked quickly.

Of course, the vetting guidelines probably aren't perfect yet; if you can see holes in them, please do submit your points via the public comment system.

Extended validation certificates

Posted Nov 2, 2006 22:07 UTC (Thu) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link]

Ahh, the VIP falacy again. Make something a VIP and it is more valuable to fake. You say that it won't be worth it to fakes because it is too expensive. Doesn't that imply that the supposed added trustworthiness of this systems instantly makes it more worthwhile to fake, making bigger phishing expeditions possible?

Extended validation certificates

Posted Nov 2, 2006 22:17 UTC (Thu) by gerv (subscriber, #3376) [Link]

Yes, EV will be a bigger target if consumers start to trust it (as we hope they will). Then we'll see if the vetting guidelines we've come up with are strong enough. If they aren't, the Forum will revise them until they are.

In the past, there was no standard for CA vetting and so no way to raise standards if there were problems. Now we have a baseline. We hope it's good enough as-is (with input from the community which is coming now) but, if it turns out not to be, we can change it and the CAs will strengthen their vetting.