Handling X509KeyStorageFlags in applications
Hello everyone! While participating on StackOverflow.com, I’m observing common in-app certificate handling misuses in .NET applications and I want to share some thoughts on this. Today I would like to speak about handling X509Certificate2 object creation inside the application code, common problems in handling private key material, potential issues and how to overcome them. Problem […]
Escalating from child domain’s admins to enterprise admins in 5 minutes by abusing AD CS, a follow up
Hello everyone, long time no see. I’m still extremely busy on my main job stuff, specifically PKI Spotlight commercial product development, so my blogging has slowed, and I’m here again! Prologue Disclaimer: This post contains steps and information that can lead to legal issues with your employer and lawsuits if you execute them in a production […]
Enabling Active Directory Certificate Services (ADCS) Advanced Audit
Hello S-1-1-0, here is another unscheduled blog post on enabling advanced audit in Microsoft CA. Today I went through another thread on Twitter which suggests how to enable advanced audit in Microsoft CA. Throughout the thread it was apparent that only partial solution was provided. Windows CA auditing engines Microsoft CA implements a set of […]
ADCS certificate serial number generation algorithms – a comprehensive guide
Hello S-1-1-0, @Crypt32 is again on a failboatboard with new blog post. Today I will share information about a little-known portion in configuration of Microsoft ADCS Certification Authority – serial number generation algorithm. This article assumes big-endian encoding Certificate serial number requirements Every X.509 conforming CA generates a unique serial number for each issued certificate, […]
PKI Solutions Webinar Series
Join us for our PKI Solutions webinar series, kicking off March 26, 2020. This will be a year of talking quantum preparedness, validating SSL certificates, multi-cloud key management, ways to improve the security of your PKI, and more. Mark Cooper, aka The PKI Guy, will present and host the webinars. Learn PKI best practices and […]
Basic Constraints certificate extension
Hello everyone! Today I’m going to talk about X.509 Basic Constraints certificate extension. Basic Constraints is an X.509 Version 3 certificate extension and is used to identify the type of the certificate holder/subject. In the past (prior to version 3 X.509 certificates) it was impossible to identify who is the subject: CA certificate or end […]
Announcing the Online PKI Assessmental Portal
Editor’s Note (2025 Update): The Online PKI Assessment Portal is no longer offered. Its capabilities have evolved into PKI Spotlight—a modern platform designed to give you continuous visibility into the health and security of your PKI. If you’re considering an assessment today, Spotlight is where to start. Contact us to learn how you can get […]
Programmatically Determining Access Rights on Certificate Private Keys
There are times when the private key associated with a certificate needs to be accessible by multiple identities, not just the identity which owns the key material. An example is the deployment of the Microsoft Network Device Enrollment Services (NDES) role service on a server which needs to connect to a remotely hosted CA. In […]