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Comments on Are certificate errors always reported immediately, or is validation cached?

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Are certificate errors always reported immediately, or is validation cached? Question

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I visited a site that I use infrequently and got a certificate error, specifically NET:ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID. I contacted the owner, who asked for a screenshot. That surprised me, as I had assumed that a certificate problem would be visible to everyone. I tested three browsers across two devices and saw the same problem everywhere -- but I also hadn't visited this site recently from any of them. The owner presumably visits it a lot.

Is certificate validation cached client-side? If so, for how long, and how can a user flush or bypass it?

I can think of two reasons to want to flush such a cache and force a recheck. One is if I'm the owner of the site and want to check that everything's ok (the situation that prompted this question). The other is if I'm a cautious user who wants to double-check that, say, my bank doesn't have security issues before I log in -- a scenario that hadn't occurred to me before seeing this error that a site owner doesn't see.

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2 comment threads

Certificate chain error visibility (1 comment)
CA Invalid? O_o (2 comments)
CA Invalid? O_o
Michael‭ wrote 5 months ago

This seems pretty extreme and unlikely: If there was a browser version disparity, it's possible that a CA was de-listed or added to the trusted list that's bundled by the browsers.

Monica Cellio‭ wrote 5 months ago

I don't know much about how CAs operate. My browser is up to date; didn't ask about the owner's.