Certificates that are self-issued might not be trustworthy.
Programs can be configured to validate X.509 certificates in one of three ways. By default, certificates are validated through their chain of trust back to a trusted root authority. This setting is known as ChainTrust
and provides the maximum level of assurance that the certificate is valid. By default all certificates are validated using ChainTrust
.
To make use of a certificate that was not issued by a trusted root authority, a program can be configured to trust certificates issued by its peers by setting either PeerTrust
or PeerOrChainTrust
. These settings should not be used in production environments because they significantly reduce the level of security granted by certificates.
[1] Standards Mapping - OWASP Top 10 2004 - (OWASP 2004) A10 Insecure Configuration Management
[2] Standards Mapping - OWASP Top 10 2010 - (OWASP 2010) A6 Security Misconfiguration
[3] Standards Mapping - Security Technical Implementation Guide Version 3 - (STIG 3) APP3305 CAT I
[4] Standards Mapping - FIPS200 - (FISMA) CM
[5] Standards Mapping - Common Weakness Enumeration - (CWE) CWE ID 296
[6] Standards Mapping - Web Application Security Consortium 24 + 2 - (WASC 24 + 2) Insufficient Authentication
[7] Standards Mapping - Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard Version 1.1 - (PCI 1.1) Requirement 6.5.10
[8] Standards Mapping - Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard Version 1.2 - (PCI 1.2) Requirement 6.5.7
[9] Standards Mapping - Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard Version 2.0 - (PCI 2.0) Requirement 6.5.8
[10] Standards Mapping - Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard Version 1.1 - (PCI 1.1) Reuiqrement 6.5.10
[11] Microsoft Corporation Working with Certificates