CESNET to Offer Globally Accepted Server Certificates to All Association Members at Least for the Next Three Years

CESNET, the association of universities and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, has made the SCS (Server Certificate Service) project available to all its members since the end of last year. All association members can thus obtain server SSL/TLS certificates issued by GlobalSign for their services, which are accepted by most internet browsers, e-mail clients and other application programs.

Thanks to the CESNET association, the Czech Republic belongs among 11 countries where universities and other research and educational institutions can obtain the aforementioned certificates through their National Research and Education Networks (NREN) – under very favorable price conditions. This is made possible by a contract concluded by TERENA (Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association) and GlobalSign. The CESNET association, building and developing the National Research and Education Network CESNET2, joined the project last April by signing a contract with the TERENA association.

The success of the project resulted in an extension of the contract between TERENA and GlobalSign at the beginning of this year for an additional three years.

NRENs have seen increasing demand for SSL (Secure Socket Layer) server certificates in recent years, given by the growing need for encrypted channels and deployment of new authentication and authorization middleware. Whenever a user attempts to connect to a server (mail server, web server etc.) with the intent to download, publish or store data, it is necessary to guarantee that the user is connected to the right server and that the user's communication with this server is secure (no one can disrupt, alter or wiretap the communication) and thus encrypted. The client/server communication is secured by the SSL technology requiring server certificates to function.

Some NREN organizations therefore established their own certification authorities (CA) to issue certificates for relating user communities. However, when attempting to access a server using one of these certificates, the user may obtain the following message: "The issuer of this certificate is not trusted." This happens if server certificates are issued by an authority, the root of which is not included among those recognized as trusted by popular web browsers, such as Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. Some NREN organizations have overcome this problem by acquiring certificates from commercial certification authorities whose roots are properly recognized. Nevertheless, such solutions are usually costly, as the principle of per-certificate billing is applied.

To resolve this issue, several NRENs have teamed up and asked the TERENA organization to enter into a contract with GlobalSign for the operation of a dedicated certification authority service that would issue server certificates to the appropriate NRENs and their user communities. This reliable solution guarantees a very low price of certificates, as they are issued in large volumes. As a result, barriers preventing the large-scale deployment of SSL server certificates at research and education communities have been removed. The certification authority service provided by GlobalSign enables partnering NREN organizations to act towards their users as service providers, issuing virtually unlimited numbers of SSL certificates.

NRENs that have been members of the service from the very beginning come from the following countries: Czech Republic (CESNET), Denmark (UNI-C), France (RENATER/CRU), Croatia (CARNet), Netherlands (SURFnet), Austria (ACOnet), Spain (RedIRIS) and Switzerland (SWITCH). NRENs from Belgium (BELNET), Norway (UNINETT) and UK (UKERNA) joined the initiative later.

More information: http://www.cesnet.cz/pki/cs/st-guide-gs.html

The CESNET association was founded by universities and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The association is currently financed mainly from the resources of the governmental Committee for Research and Education and the resources of the members of the association. The association performs research and development in the area of information and communication technologies, building and developing the national gigabit optical network, CESNET2, designed for research and educational purposes. With its research activities and accomplishments achieved, the CESNET association can represent the Czech Republic in the European GN2 project as well as other international projects.