Contents
How does the client verify the server certificate?
SSL-enabled client software always requires server authentication, or cryptographic validation by a client of the server’s identity. The server sends the client a certificate to authenticate itself. The client uses the certificate to authenticate the identity the certificate claims to represent.
How does a user verify if the received server certificate is valid?
Verification of certificate: The server sends a certificate to the user agent while making a TLS connection. Then the user agent(browser) looks at the certificate checks whether the certificate is from trusted CA’s.
How does a client know an SSL cert has been signed?
In this case the client treats the certificate as valid. The certificate is signed by a CA about which the client has no knowledge at all. In this case the client treats the certificate as invalid (and the browser will likely display a warning message instead of loading the page).
When to send a client certificate authentication request?
Upon receiving the CLIENT HELLO, if the server is configured for Client Certificate Authentication, it will send a list of Distinguished CA names & Client Certificate Request to the client as a part of the SERVER HELLO apart from other details depicted above.
How are SSL certificates verified by the web server?
Your browser encrypts the symmetric key with the public key of the web server then sends it back, thus ensuring that only the web server can decrypt it, since only the web server has its private key. Note that the certificate authority (CA) is essential to preventing man-in-the-middle attacks.
Do you need a private key for a client certificate?
On the Client the Client Certificates must have a Private Key. If absent, then the certificate is ignored. If the server doesn’t provide the list of Distinguished CA Names in the SERVER HELLO, then the client will present the user with all the client certificates that it has access to.