Description: An untrusted certificate is a type of digital certificate that is not recognized as secure by the system or application evaluating it. This can occur for various reasons, the most common being that the certificate is not signed by a trusted Certificate Authority (CA). In the context of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), digital certificates are used to authenticate the identity of entities, such as websites or users, and to encrypt communication between them. An untrusted certificate can generate warnings in web browsers or applications, indicating that the connection is not secure. This is crucial for online security, as users must be able to trust that the information they send and receive is protected. The lack of trust in a certificate can result from the CA that issued it not being on the system’s list of trusted CAs, the certificate having expired, or it being revoked. Consequently, untrusted certificates can hinder secure communication and trust in digital transactions, highlighting the importance of maintaining a robust and up-to-date public key infrastructure.
