Certificate Manager for Digital Trust Evaluation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Identifying a set of trusted certificate authorities is challenging due to the large number of potential digital certificates issued by various authorities, making it difficult for network clients to determine which authorities and certificates to trust, thereby increasing the risk of compromising or forging certificates.
Innovation Solution
A certificate manager is implemented to apply entity-specific rules to digital certificates, examining attributes, chain of trust, and custom attributes to determine trustworthiness, reducing the number of trusted root certificates and potentially trusted certificates, and using a scoring system to evaluate the trustworthiness of digital certificates based on quality, age, and signature algorithms.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a network client trusts a large number of certificate authorities to ensure comprehensive certificate validation, then the coverage of trusted certificates increases, but the difficulty of identifying which certificates to trust increases and the risk of trusting compromised certificates increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the parameters of certificate evaluation by introducing multiple attributes (entity type, certificate age, signature algorithm strength, revocation status) and assigning weights to these parameters. This transforms the binary trust decision into a multi-dimensional evaluation, allowing the system to distinguish between different levels of trustworthiness among numerous certificates without manually managing each one.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary evaluation mechanism that acts between the trust store and the certificate validation process. This intermediary applies the attribute-based scoring system to filter and rank certificates, mediating between the large trust store and the final trust decision, thereby reducing the complexity of direct trust management.
2Adaptability or versatility
If a network client configures a trust store with many certificate authorities to validate diverse certificates, then the versatility of certificate acceptance improves, but the risk of security compromise increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by evaluating different attributes of certificates with different weights based on their specific characteristics. For example, enterprise certificates may be evaluated differently than government certificates, and certificates with stronger signature algorithms receive higher scores. This localized evaluation approach allows versatile certificate acceptance while maintaining security by tailoring the evaluation to each certificate's specific qualities.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary evaluation of certificates against multiple attributes and criteria before final trust validation. By pre-calculating scores based on entity type, age, signature algorithms, and revocation status, the system prepares a ranked list of trustworthy certificates in advance, filtering out potentially compromised certificates before they reach the final validation stage.
3Measurement precision
If a network client manually specifies which digital certificates to trust, then the precision of trust selection improves, but the time and effort required for configuration increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements self-service by enabling the system to automatically evaluate and rank certificates based on predefined attributes and scoring criteria. Instead of requiring manual specification of trusted certificates, the system autonomously performs the evaluation, calculating scores based on entity type, certificate age, signature algorithm strength, and revocation status, thereby achieving precise trust selection without manual intervention.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent incorporates feedback mechanisms where the evaluation results and scoring are used to continuously refine trust decisions. The system provides feedback on certificate quality metrics and uses this information to adjust trust levels dynamically, creating a closed-loop system that improves precision over time without requiring repeated manual configuration.
Data Source
AI summary
A certificate manager allows a particular entity such as an individual computer system, computer application, or network service, to define a customized set of rules that are used to identify digital certificates that are trusted by the particular entity. When a digital certificate is presented to the entity, the certificate manager determines whether the digital certificate is trustworthy by examining the characteristics of the certificate such as the expiration of the certificate, the characteristics of the certificate authorities that signed the digital certificate, or the signing algorithms used to generate the digital signatures on the certificate. The certificate manager may be combined with trusted root CA stores, pinned certificate stores, and other certificate management systems to define a customized set of potentially trusted certificates based on the characteristics of the particular entity.