How Cyber Criminals Exploit Digital Certificates

While the world at large is wondering “what is a digital certificate” cyber criminals have been busy exploiting these documents for their gain. Digital certificates are the digital equivalent of physical (paper-based) certificates.?

When businesses globally moved digital, they quickly realized they couldn’t rely on paper-based certificates anymore than they already did. This forced them to move the majority of their business processes online and embrace digital certificates.

But before we get into the many ways cyber criminals exploit digital certificates, understanding digital certificates is important.

What is the Purpose of a Digital Certificate?

The primary purpose of a digital certificate was to move paper-based documents online and make it easier to generate, store, manage, and share these online documents.

How are Digital Certificates Verified?

While businesses and other organizations got busy issuing and sharing digital certificates, they stumbled upon an important problem: how will their digital certificates be verified? Consequently, digital signatures came into the mix.

Ways Cyber Criminals Exploit Digital Certificates

While digital signatures are a great way to check a digital certificate of authenticity, they're not immune to manipulation by fraudsters.

There are several ways cyber criminals employ to dupe or alter digital certificates, including:

1. Malware Attacks

Cyber criminals’ go-to approach to exploit a digital certificate is to use malware.

Oftentimes, they sneak in a malware code with a digital certification containing verification signature by a trusted authority. This helps them get malware inside the door without risking notice.

1. Identity Frauds

Cyber criminals steal a legitimate digital certificate and alter its contents to dupe innocent individuals.

For instance, an individual could dupe a university’s course completion certificate and modify its contents to further their cause.

1. Intercept Secure Connections

Cyber criminals might also intercept a website’s digital certificate to track its transactions and activity. These man-of-the-middle attacks infringe on a user's privacy and open the doors to identity fraud.

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Though these challenges seem insurmountable, they are anything but. Digital certificate blockchain is proof that cyber criminals can be outwitted and forced back.?

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