In recent years, digital certificates have become one of the most widely accepted public key technologies used to secure electronic communications that are transmitted over the Internet. To promote the use of this technology, the Secure Information Exchange Services group within Information Technology has established the Virginia Tech Certification Authority (VTCA) to provide a digital certificate service to the campus community.
Digital certificates are electronic identity credentials which use encryption to support secure access to a large number of web services and applications on campus.
The VTCA will play an increasingly significant role by providing several important security functions including strong digital identity credentials for authentication; strong encryption for data communications and storage privacy; digital signatures which support non-repudiation of online transactions; and document integrity using digital signatures.
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Announcement :On January 13, 2012, the Secure Information Exchange Services (SIES) group updated the Virginia Tech Global Root CA CRL (Certificate Revocation List) profile to remove the "CRL Distribution Point" extension. The update was done to prevent further problems with applications that use MAC OS X SSL libraries, which are unable to process the "CRL Distribution Point" extension. Click here for details:
Announcement : Effective 03/16/2011, the Virginia Tech Certification Authority will issue globally trusted SSL server certificates under the new root certificate "Virginia Tech Global Root CA." These certifcates are automatically accepted by most browsers and applications. Click here for details.
Announcement: The underlying VTCA software which supports enrollment for VA Tech SSL Server and Middleware digital certificates was migrated from OpenCA to EJBCA (Enterprise Java Bean Certificate Authority) on 07/17/2009. EJBCA is an enterprise class PKI Certificate Authority built on J2EE technology.
SSL Server certificates are available for use by departments that need to secure Web-based services requiring SSL encryption. Please select the SSL Server -> Request a Certificate entry from the Subscriber tab at the side of this page for details.
Middleware client certificates are available for use by departments that are developing applications that require secure SSL client authentication to the University Enterprise Directory services. Please select the Middleware -> Request a Certificate entry from the Subscriber tab at the side of this page for details.
Information about Personal Digital Certificates (PDCs) is available at www.pki.vt.edu/pdc/FAQ.html