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Certificate Management

Cert tools

🔍 What is Certificate Inspection?

Certificate inspection is the process of analyzing X.509 digital certificates to verify their structure, validity, and security properties. This is crucial for:

🔒 SSL/TLS Troubleshooting

Diagnosing certificate chain issues, expiry problems, and trust validation failures in web servers and applications.

🏢 Enterprise PKI Management

Auditing certificate compliance, key strength, and organizational policy adherence across infrastructure.

🛡️ Security Assessment

Identifying weak cryptographic algorithms, short key lengths, and potential vulnerabilities.

Prerequisites
  • Basic understanding of public key infrastructure (PKI)
  • Access to the certificate file (PEM, DER, CRT, CER)

⚙️ Technical Deep Dive

How Certificate Inspection Works
  1. Certificate Parsing: Uses X.509 ASN.1 DER/PEM parsing to extract fields:
    • Subject Distinguished Name (DN)
    • Issuer DN
    • Public Key Info (algorithm, key size)
    • Extensions (SAN, Key Usage, policies)
  2. Cryptographic Analysis: Evaluates:
    • Key Size Validation (RSA ≥2048 bits, ECDSA ≥256 bits)
    • Signature Algorithm (checks for deprecated MD5, SHA-1)
    • Certificate Policies (OID compliance)
  3. Trust Chain Verification: (if chain provided)
    • Chain Building (path to trusted root CA)
    • Signature Verification
    • Revocation Checking (CRL/OCSP)
Standards & Algorithms
  • X.509 (RFC 5280)
  • RSA, ECDSA, DSA algorithms
  • PEM/DER encoding
Security Considerations
  • Reject certificates with weak keys or deprecated algorithms
  • Check for proper key usage and critical extensions
  • Validate expiration and revocation status
Best Practices
  • Always use strong cryptography (RSA 2048+, ECDSA 256+)
  • Monitor certificate expiry and renew in advance
  • Regularly audit certificates for compliance

💡 Interactive Examples

(Loads a real certificate for analysis)
What to Look For:
  • Subject CN matches domain name
  • SAN extension with alternative domains
  • Key Usage: Digital Signature, Key Encipherment
  • Extended Key Usage: Server Authentication
Troubleshooting Tips:
  • If parsing fails, check that the certificate is in PEM or DER format
  • For chain issues, ensure all intermediate certificates are included
  • Expired or revoked certificates will be flagged as invalid
Resources

Certificate Inspector

(Loads a real certificate for analysis)