Root Certificate: a intermediary role in issuing SSL Certificate


Root Certificate is also called chain Certificate, CA certificates or intermediate certificate. Many software applications are holding trust for root certificate. You can find root certificates in Microsoft Windows, Mozilla Firefox, Mac OS X, Adobe Reader, etc. The reason behind the root certificate is to set up a digital chain of trust. The main object of root certificate is to publish Root certificates to CA (certificate authority). Root certificate holds acme position in all the certificates.

          The browser will recognize the certificates that occupy sign and set up by root certificate Issuing CA keeps certificate policy and root certificate separately due to the different demand of certificates. All the certificates have different level of assurance such as high-level, medium level and low-level. There is a trust between end entity certificates and issuing CA. End entity creates a link between a domain name and website owner.

         When a user browses to the website protected by the SSL Certificate, the browser will start to verify the certificate and follows the chain of trust. The root certificate authority has a right to issue certificates for itself. The sub authorities come under the root CA. First root CA issued certificate to sub CA and then sub authority issue it to end-user. Root certification authority should stay offline to prevent hijacking of Public key infrastructure (PKI).The root certificates become activate when you connect via the https:// link to make sure that you're linking to the desired site. Certificate Chain is also named with certificate path which comprises a list of certificates use to authenticate the end-user.