UPDATED 11:31 EDT / SEPTEMBER 19 2011

NEWS

Dutch Authority Revokes DigiNotar’s Accreditation: The Final Nail in their Coffin?

Vulnerability is perhaps at the least of the guest list when we talk about security within the tech space. Rampant hacking activities that place customers’ data and information at risk are starting to pin down good companies. Their latest unfortunate victim is DigiNotar. A then-trusted tool to validate and register SSL (secure sockets layer) certificates to ensure safe communications exchanges for websites, DigiNotar unexpectedly takes a very agonizing pitfall. The torment started in July, when ComodoHackers (as what they named themselves) generated and forged certificates for the google.com domain. For these reasons, OPTA or Dutch independent post and telecommunication authority had decided to revoke accreditation of DigiNotar.

Kit Doston of SiliconANGLE.com has predicted the collapse of DigiNotar soon after the hacking incident. In his recent article, the word trust was nominated several times and this same word is what the business lost. Probes have also uncovered DigiNotar’s weaknesses, violations in protocols and feeble response to the attacks.

Abandonment of clients and partners followed in no time. With tainted name, it did not come as a surprise that Adobe removes fraudulent DigiNotar in their cluster as a security move. Adobe becomes very particular to fix vulnerabilities with products like Acrobat and Reader.

eWeek noted on Adobe’s fathomable decision to axe DigiNotar: “Along with the quarterly updates, the company also published the updated Adobe Approved Trust List (AATL) to remove the DigiNotar Qualified CA certificate. Adobe Reader and Acrobat X dynamically manage the Trust List without requiring a full product update or patch, so the applications are fully protected from potential fraudulent certificates signed by the Dutch certificate authority.”

Another big fish that swam away from the company’s ocean is Microsoft—which happens to be patching 15 bugs and pressing the “kill switch” on SSL certificates as a result of the breaches within DigiNotar’s security fences. Google also warned Iranian Gmail users to be cautious in clicking suspicious pop-ups and prompts as this could be a ComodoHacker, a cybercriminal that will lead you to fake websites that will ask for your usernames and passwords.


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