Chapter 19 Certificates

19.12 Verifying a Trusted Remote Host’s Certificate

Certificates issued by certification authorities have the certification authority’s signature for you to check. Self-signed certificates only have the signature of the host itself. This means that you must be very careful when deciding to import (and thereby trust) a remote host’s self- signed certificate.

19.12.1 Trusted Remote Host Certificate Fingerprints

A certificate’s fingerprints are message digests calculated using the MD5 or SHA1 algorithms. The following procedure describes how to use a certificate’s fingerprint to verify that you have the remote host’s actual certificate.

1Browse to where you have the remote host’s certificate saved on your computer.

2Make sure that the certificate has a “.cer” or “.crt” file name extension.

Figure 160 Remote Host Certificates

3Double-click the certificate’s icon to open the Certificate window. Click the Details tab and scroll down to the Thumbprint Algorithm and Thumbprint fields.

Figure 161 Certificate Details

Verify (over the phone for example) that the remote host has the same information in the Thumbprint Algorithm and Thumbprint fields.

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P-2602H(W)(L)-DxA User’s Guide