Google Chrome will stop trusting older Symantec certificates

Chrome will stop trusting any security certificates issued by Symantec, Google has confirmed.

In a blog post, Chrome Security's Devon O’Brien, Ryan Sleevi and Andrew Whalley say that certificates from the security firm will be "distrusted," starting with version Chrome 66. This affects all certificates issued before June 1, 2016.

At the same time, Symantec is working with webmasters to switch to Digi Cert certificates, after the company bought the firm's failing web security business.

Chrome 66 is expected to arrive in June next year, so the final shutdown should expected with Chrome 70 next October. This will, as Google puts it, "fully remove trust in Symantec's old infrastructure and all of the certificates it has issued."

For the uninitiated, Google decided to remove Symantec certificates after it had found a couple of certificates in 2015 which didn’t adhere to industry standards. An in-depth investigation has confirmed that Symantec had actually outsourced the job to other companies and failed to oversee it properly.

Webmasters that want to keep old Symantec certificates should be aware that there is a 13-month limit.

According to The Inquirer, Symantec’s CEO Greg Clark said their customers will have a world-class experience moving forward.

"We carefully examined our options to ensure our customers would have a world-class experience with a company that offers a modern website PKI platform and is poised to lead the next generation of website security innovation," he said.

"I'm thrilled that our customers will benefit from a seamless transition to DigiCert, a company that is solely focused on delivering leading identity and encryption solutions."

Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Future plc Publication. All rights reserved.

Image Credit: Lane V Erickson / Shutterstock