Getting this warning message – ‘Certificate Not Trusted’ is one of the most common issues faced by people. This happens when a website is accessed through a secured connection.
The exact warning message might differ according to the browsers. Refer to the warning messages given below:
Internet Explorer 7 – ‘The security certificate presented by this website was not issued by a trusted certificate authority.’
Safari – ‘Authentication failed because the server certificate is not trusted.’
Firefox 3 – ‘The certificate is not trusted because the issuer certificate is unknown. (Error code: sec_error_unknown_issuer)’
Google Chrome – ‘The site’s security certificate is not trusted!’
If you come across any of the warnings mentioned above, it means that the browser you are using does not trust the SSL certificate because it is not authorized by a company that is recognized as trusted by the browser.
The two main reasons for the occurrence of this warning are:
- The website is utilizing free or self assigned SSL certificate
- There is a private SSL installed on the website but it is missing a CA (Certificate Authority) certificate
The best solution to this is to purchase a private SSL that is issued by a trusted authority and from a good web hosting provider for that specific domain.
The second solution would be to reinstall the SSL certificate with the right CA bundle. The SSL provider offers the CA bundle and it must be incorporated in the private SSL package.