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January 7, 2000 In brief, both your browser and the Internet site providing secure pages contain security certificates. These certificates establish and maintain the security between you and a web site. Some older browsers contain a certificate whose expiration date was December 31, 1999. This is not a "Y2k" problem, just a coincidence. In fact, there are many different browser certificates in circulation which expire between 1998 and 2010. This problem manifests itself with a warning message that the certificate has expired. Often, this message does not clearly state which certificate has expired. A side effect of the problem is that pages that appear to be secure may be so using the inferior 40bit security or no security at all. This means that even though you believe you are viewing pages securely, information may be passing through the Internet completely unsecured. This problem can occur on versions of Navigator 4.05 and earlier. The problem also exists with versions of Internet Explorer prior to 4.1 (4.5 for the Macintosh). Other browsers may experience similar problems. Both Netscape and Microsoft advise that you update you browser to solve the problem. The latest version of Navigator may be found at http://home.netscape.com/download/index.html and the latest version of Internet Explorer can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/ie/download/. It has been reported that simply updating the certificate is not sufficient, you should update the entire browser. VeriSign, the vendor who supplies ECSI's certificate, has much useful information concerning the details of the certificate problems. You can view the information on their web site at http://www.verisign.com/server/cus/rootcert/facts.html. They also provide an extensive list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) at http://www.verisign.com/server/cus/rootcert/faq.html
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