What is Evidencing Ownership of a Certificate?
Certificate ownership is who controls the certificate A digital certificate is an electronic document to prove the identity of a website or a person. This is issued by a reputable Certificate Authority (CA) and contains information like the owners name, domain name, and public key.
The Values of Having Ownership of the Certificate
There are a number of reasons why it is important to own your certificates:
Security: It protects you from visiting a phishing website and checks the integrity of the website you are going to visit.
This creates trust between the owner of the website and the visitor.
Compliance: A lot of industries such as healthcare and finance have strict regulations on data security and encryption. Having certain certificates is often a mandatory requirement for compliance.
Method for so-called Certificate Ownership Verification
There are three methods you can use to validate ownership of the certificates:
CA Verification: A distinguished certificate authority will have a rigorous verification process for assuring the actual identity of certificate owners.
Reviewing the Certificate Information: When you click the padlock icon in the address bar of your browser, you can see the details of a certificate. Check details like the organization name, domain name, and expiration date.
Checking the revocation status of a certificate using Online Certificate Transparency (OCSP): OCSP is a way to check the revocation status in real-time.
Certificate Ownership Best Practices:
Select a Reputable CA: Go for a top notch CA with a long experience in secure and reliable services.
Keep certificates updated: Make sure to regularly renew your certificates to keep the security of your website uninterrupted.
Use best practices of security to keep your private key and other sensitive info safe from unauthorized users.
Certificate Revocation List Monitor: Remain applicable over any revoked certificate to resolve any impending security issue.
