What's the Difference Between a Standard and an "EV" Certificate?
June 21, 2011 by Kevin
A certificate on the web is a sort of code issued to websites to verify that the site belongs to a specific individual. Certificates provide a secure connection between the site and the user. They are issued according to a specific set of identity verification criteria. These criteria require verification of the requesting entity's identity by a Certificate Authority (CA) before a certificate is issued. The applicant of an EV or Extended Validation Certificate undergoes a more rigorous background and verification check than those of a normal certificate. EV SSL certificates are intended to give confidence to users that a website operator is a legally established business or organization with a verifiable identity.
Certificates issued by a CA under the EV guidelines are not structurally different from other certificates (and hence provide no stronger cryptography than other, cheaper certificates), but are designated with a CA-specific policy identifier so that EV-aware software can recognize them.
Posted in
Help Me Understand
