A security engineer at an offline government facility is concerned about the validity of an SSL certificate.
The engineer wants to perform the fastest check with the least delay to determine if the certificate has been revoked.
Which of the following would BEST meet these requirements?
A.
RA B.
OCSP C.
CRL D.
CSR.
C.
A security engineer at an offline government facility is concerned about the validity of an SSL certificate.
The engineer wants to perform the fastest check with the least delay to determine if the certificate has been revoked.
Which of the following would BEST meet these requirements?
A.
RA
B.
OCSP
C.
CRL
D.
CSR.
C.
The correct answer is C. CRL (Certificate Revocation List).
Explanation:
SSL certificates are used to establish a secure connection between a web server and a client's browser. When an SSL certificate is issued, it is valid for a certain period, after which it expires. However, there may be situations where the SSL certificate needs to be revoked before it expires. For example, if the private key used to sign the certificate is compromised or if the certificate owner's details have changed.
When an SSL certificate is revoked, the client's browser needs to be informed so that it can no longer trust the certificate. To do this, a certificate revocation list (CRL) is used. A CRL is a list of SSL certificates that have been revoked before their expiration date. The CRL is published by the certificate authority (CA) that issued the SSL certificate.
To check if an SSL certificate has been revoked, the client's browser needs to download the CRL from the CA's website and compare it to the certificate being presented. The CRL contains information about the SSL certificate, including its serial number and revocation date.
Compared to the other options provided in the question, a CRL is the fastest and easiest method to check if an SSL certificate has been revoked. RA (option A) stands for Registration Authority, which is not used to check SSL certificate revocation. OCSP (option B) stands for Online Certificate Status Protocol, which is another method to check the status of SSL certificates, but it requires a real-time connection to the CA's server and may cause delays. CSR (option D) stands for Certificate Signing Request, which is used to request an SSL certificate from a CA and not used to check its revocation status.
Therefore, the best option to meet the security engineer's requirements is to use a CRL to check if the SSL certificate has been revoked.