Internet Security under Attack: The Undermining of Digital Certificates

Several attacks this year against organizations issuing digital certificates are creating doubts about the system. For almost 20 years, digital certificates have been a key aspect of Internet security. The certificates-detailed in the "The Digital Certificate" side-bar-are designed to establish the credentials of people doing business or otherwise communicating on the Web and to verify that they are who they say they are. However, several attacks this year by a hacker against organizations issuing certificates are creating doubts about Internet communications\´ safety in general and the digital-certificate model\´s integrity in particular. The attacker tried to break into at least three certificate authorities\´ systems and succeeded with two of the CAs.