You want to visit a website, perhaps one you usually connect to, and a warning message appears, preventing you from accessing it. But what’s happening? A major change in Chrome’s security policy will soon create just such situations.
Google announced that its Chrome browser will no longer support security certificates issued by Entrust and AffirmTrust. Starting November 1, 2024, TLS authentication certificates from these two entities will no longer be trusted by default.
“Over the past several years, publicly disclosed incident reports have highlighted a pattern of concerning behavior by Entrust”the Chrome Security Team reports. The certification authority’s processes no longer meet the Mountain View firm’s security requirements, which explain that trust in its competence, reliability and integrity has eroded.
Chrome revolutionizes its management of security certificates
“Certification authorities play a privileged role on the Internet, because they ensure encrypted connections between browsers and websites”recalls Google, which believes that such responsibility brings expectations “in terms of security and compliance, in particular those defined by TLS requirements”.
“Over the past six years, we have seen a pattern of non-compliance, unfulfilled improvement commitments and a lack of tangible, measurable progress in response to incident reports”regrets Google. “Chrome’s continued reliance on Entrust is no longer justified”concludes the American firm.
Blocking of security certificates issued by Entrust and AffirmTrust will be effective on Chrome 127 and higher versions of the browser on almost all devices: Windows, macOS, ChromeOS, Android et Linux (iOS prohibits the use of Chrome Certificate Verifier and Chrome Root Store).
Users will, however, have the option to manually re-enable banned certificates in Chrome settings, at their own risk. If you choose to keep the default options, you will no longer be able to access websites distributing a certificate issued by Entrust or AffirmTrust after October 31, 2024. You will then see a warning screen appear as in the screenshot below.
