What are the differences between SSL Certificates?


This article applies to:

  • R3000

Question:

What are the differences between SSL Certificates?

Reply

What's the difference between a Trusted Root certificate and a Chained certificate? A Trusted Root CA is a certificate of a certification authority (CA) which is added to a browser by the browser vendor. It signifies that the browser vendor (such as Microsoft) trusts the CA and will hence establish a high level of trust with websites that use SSL certificates signed by this CA. A Chained (or Intermediate) root CA certificate is a certificate of a certification authority (CA) which is not present in a browser as opposed to a trusted root CA certificate.

However, the chained certificate has been issued by a CA with a trusted root CA certificate. Since there is no direct relationship between the browser vendor and the chained root CA a lower level of trust is established. Furthermore authenticating sites with certificates signed by a chained root CA is more complex and requires more information to be exchanged between the server and the client.

Does the R3000 support chained/intermediate certificates? When you purchase a Chained/Intermediate certificate, you will usually receive two separate certificates, both of which must be installed on the web server (i.e. the R3000).

This article was previously published as:
8e6 KB 276490

Last Modified 4/12/2012.
https://support.trustwave.com/kb/KnowledgebaseArticle12312.aspx