[SGVLUG] StartCom temination announcement

[Henry B (Hank) Hotz, CISSP via SGVLUG]

They were bought by a company which attempted to conceal their Chinese ownership. Also another CA (I forget who) owned by the same people was found to have done some bad things.

Comodo seems to do things right. They announced promptly when one of their RAs got hacked and audited and revoked everything. They also offer free user certs for email encryption. 

For server-side I’d go with letsencrypt.org. Only 90 day certs, but renewal automates well.

> On Dec 4, 2017, at 11:38 AM, Matthew Campbell via SGVLUG <sgvlug at sgvlug.net> wrote:
> 
> Wow, what you miss when you're heads-down on a project....
> 
> Matt
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: StartCom CertMaster <cmsmaster at startcomca.com>
> Date: Sun, Dec 3, 2017 at 3:35 AM
> Subject: StartCom temination announcement
> To: <snip>
> 
> 
> This is an automatically generated email, please do not reply.
> 
> Dear customer,
> 
> As you are surely aware, the browser makers distrusted StartCom around
> a year ago and therefore all the end entity certificates newly issued
> by StartCom are not trusted by default in browsers.
> 
> The browsers imposed some conditions in order for the certificates to
> be re-accepted. While StartCom believes that these conditions have
> been met, it appears there are still certain difficulties forthcoming.
> Considering this situation, the owners of StartCom have decided to
> terminate the company as a Certification Authority as mentioned in
> Startcom´s website.
> 
> StartCom will stop issuing new certificates starting from January 1st,
> 2018 and will provide only CRL and OCSP services for two more years.
> 
> StartCom would like to thank you for your support during this difficult time.
> 
> StartCom is contacting some other CAs to provide you with the
> certificates needed. In case you don´t want us to provide you an
> alternative, please, contact us at certmaster at startcomca.com
> 
> Please let us know if you need any further assistance with the
> transition process. We deeply apologize for any inconveniences that
> this may cause.
> 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> StartCom Certification Authority
> 

Personal email.  hbhotz at oxy.edu