Mac OS X Can't Properly Revoke Dodgy Digital Certificates
A programming glitch in Apple's OS X operating system is making it hard for Mac users to tell their computers not to trust digital certificates, exacerbating an ongoing security problem with a Dutch certificate authority that was recently hacked.
Mac users began reporting problems Tuesday when they tried to revoke digital certificates issued by DigiNotar, a Dutch company whose servers were compromised last month and used to issue fraudulent digital certificates. Mac users revoked the certificates on their computers, but still saw some sites that used those certificates being marked as trustworthy.
Digital certificates are an important part of the way the Internet works, and are essential whenever two computers try to connect using the HTTPS protocol. The problem is that Apple's operating system does not allow users to revoke DigiNotar certificates properly, and marks some websites as trustworthy when it shouldn't.
