World’s No. 1 Certificate Authority Comodo Ready to Replace Symantec Certificates Facing an Uncertain Future in Google Chrome

Fortune, Reuters and others are circulating news reports that Symantec is considering selling its website certification business.

As the world’s No. 1 certificate authority, our team here at Comodo wants to assure Symantec CA customers that use certain Symantec branded certificates in Google Chrome and  are facing an uncertain future, that we remain fully committed to the CA industry and providing trust to the internet. We have sustained our investments in technology, capacity, and support resources, and stand ready to onboard Symantec’s customers and channel partners looking to avoid potential disruption.

The strongest testimony to our achievements comes from our customers and market success. Today, Comodo is the industry’s leading SSL certificate authority worldwide, with a market share of 41 percent, and is used by 15 percent of all SSL websites, according to research from W3Techs.

Our momentum is accelerating, as increasingly, Symantec  customers and channel partners look to Comodo for the latest in certificate management technology, better support and more reliable and cost effective solutions.

Some recent market highlights we announced include:

• Seven former Symantec and Verisign SSL certificate industry veterans and leaders have now joined the company to spearhead worldwide channel and global business development initiatives. This team brings more than 80 years of experience to Comodo (Read full news release
• Many channel partners worldwide such as Internet.bs, TrustCert (e-Safer), Trustico, Servertastic and others not yet announced have newly established strategic partnerships with Comodo
• An initiative to accelerate IoT security programs, headed by a former Symantec/Verisign veteran
• A competitive upgrade program that provides an equivalent certificate with one year free for all existing Symantec, Thawte and GeoTrust certificates
• Comodo has created an online website certificate assessment tool to evaluate if a website is affected by issues with Symantec certificates and explore options
• We’ve introduced cWatch Web, our newest fully-managed security service for websites, to expand value beyond SSL certificates and create business opportunities for channel partners. cWatch provides continuous web server, database and application monitoring with operating system and environmental logging and control – detecting threats before they affect customers’ websites, databases and critical web applications

Recent news reports revealed potential disruption for sites using Symantec certificates. When visitors to the site are using Google Chrome, the industry-leading browser, Symantec-issued certificates will have a shorter life and not have the green trust padlock indicator. These problems will cost businesses more for the shorter life cycle certificates and potentially reduce traffic and revenue, as consumer and partner confidence in the trustworthiness of the site declines.

One proposal under consideration is for Chrome to stop recognizing the EV status of all certificates issued by Symantec-owned certificate authorities for at least one year, and to limit the maximum life of Symantec certificates to nine months, according to posts by the Google development team in online forums. TechTarget has published an interesting timeline of Google’s discovery of problems with Symantec’s certificates and subsequent punitive actions under consideration.  Symantec’s response to the proposal and a public discussion may be found here.

Since Google Chrome has a majority of the browser market, if and when Google delivers on its intentions, enterprises with Symantec certificates would not have the benefit of showing the organization’s name in green for at least one year, a user-friendly security feature that is available in Chrome for EV certificates. In addition, certificates may have to be rotated more frequently, since the maximum accepted validity period will be reduced to nine months or less.

Enterprise IT teams owning Symantec, Thawte and GeoTrust certificates, or using the Symantec MPKI platform, can contact sales@comodo.com, call 1-855-478-7740 or click here to get more information on the upgrade program.

Companies that have previously purchased a Symantec certificate from a Webhost or Domain Name Registrar should contact their current provider, who may be able to offer a replacement Comodo certificate.

More information about Comodo’s certificate issuance and management services is available online.

Resources
Comodo blog: “Google Chrome: ‘Intent to Deprecate and Remove: Trust in existing Symantec-issued Certificates’”
Online Domain Checking Tool for At-risk Symantec Certificates
Comodo Certificates Website