IE 10 Reinstalling Root Certificates Automatically

This section provides a tutorial example showing IE 10 reinstalls trusted root certificate automatically when it is needed to validate an HTTPS Web server certificate.

From the previous tutorial, we learned that there is second root CA certificate "VeriSign Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority (PCA3 G1 SHA1)" that can be used to validate "login.yahoo.com". If I delete "VeriSign Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority (PCA3 G1 SHA1)" also from IE 10, what will happen?

1. Run IE 10 as administrator, and go to the "Trusted Root Certificate Authorities" certificate store.

2. Go through the list of root CA certificates, and locate "Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority certificate. You will see 3 entries.

3. Export all 3 entries of "Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority" certificates to local files.

4. Remove all 3 entries of "Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority" certificates.

5. Close and run IE 10 again. Go to https://login.yahoo.com and wait for the log in page to be displayed.

6. Click the lock icon at the end of the Web address field and click the "View certificates" link.

7. Click the "Certificate Path" tab. I am surprised to see that IE 10 validated "login.yahoo.com" certificate with the same certificate path:

VeriSign Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority (PCA3 G1 SHA1)
|- VeriSign Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority - G5
   |- VeriSign Class 3 Secure Server CA - G3
      |- *.login.yahoo.com

8. Close the Certificate and go to the trusted root CA certificate area. I see that "Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority" with a display name of "VeriSign Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority (PCA3 G1 SHA1)" has been installed back in IE 10.

This tells me that IE 10 automatically fetched the root CA certificate from the Internet and install it as trusted root CA when it is needed.

Last update: 2015.

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 Introduction of PKI (Public Key Infrastructure)

 Introduction of HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure)

Using HTTPS with IE (Internet Explorer) 10

 Visiting "https" Web Site with IE 10

 Viewing Server Certificate Details in IE 10

 Viewing Server Certificate Path in IE 10

 Installing Server Certificate Permanently in IE 10

 Viewing Certificates in Certificate Stores in IE 10

 Listing of Trusted Root CA in IE 10

 Exporting Certificate to File from IE 10

 Saving Server Certificate to File with IE 10

 Deleting Certificates from IE 10

 IE 10 Supporting Multiple Certificate Paths

IE 10 Reinstalling Root Certificates Automatically

 Windows Automatic Root Update Mechanism

 Using HTTPS with Chrome 40

 Using HTTPS with Firefox 35

 Perl Scripts Communicating with HTTPS Servers

 PHP Scripts Communicating with HTTPS Servers

 Java Programs Communicating with HTTPS Servers

 Certificate Stores and Certificate Console

 .NET Programs Communicating with HTTPS Servers

 CAcert.org - Root CA Offering Free Certificates

 PKI CA Administration - Issuing Certificates

 Digital Signature - Microsoft Word 2007

 Digital Signature - OpenOffice.org 3

 S/MIME and Email Security

 PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) Terminology

 Outdated Tutorials

 References

 PDF Printing Version