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Why do we get a “SSL Error – Certificate Not Trusted” ?

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Have you ever wondered while you access a website through a secure connection , you happen to get a warning message that the certificate is not issued by a trusted authority.

In most cases , the exact warning message that you will get depends on your browser as follows:

* Internet Explorer The security certificate presented by this website was not issued by a trusted certificate authority.

* Firefox The certificate is not trusted because the issuer certificate is unknown. (Error code:sec_error_unknown_issuer)

* Google Chrome The sites security certificate is not trusted!

* Safari Authentication failed because the server certificate is not trusted.!

If you get any one of the above warnings, this means that your browser does not trust the SSL certificate. This is because it is not signed by a company that the browser recognizes as a trusted.

The two most common reasons for this warning are:

1) The website will be using a private SSL certificate, but it is missing a CA (Certificate Authority) certificate.

The solution in this case will be to purchase a private SSL Certificate which is issued for the specific domain or website by a trusted authority.

2) The website will be using a self-signed or a free SSL Certificate.

The solution here, will be to get the SSL certificate reinstalled with the correct CA bundle. The CA bundle is actually provided by the SSL vendor and should be included in the private SSL package.

About Annie

I've been working in Technical Section for over 10 years in a wide range of tech jobs from Tech Support to Software Testing. I started writing blog for my future reference and useful for all.
Posted in Browser, Web Hosting

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