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Google Let Root Certificate For Gmail Expire

Posted by Soulskill on from the happens-to-the-best-of-us dept.

Gr8Apes writes: The certificate for Google's intermediate certificate authority expired Saturday. The certificate was used to issue Gmail's certificate for SMTP, and the expiration at 11:55am EDT caused many e-mail clients to stop receiving Gmail messages. While the problem affected most Gmail users using PC and mobile mail clients, Web access to Gmail was unaffected. I guess Google Calendar failed to notify someone.

3 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Just clients? by multi+io · · Score: 4, Informative

    The certificate was used to issue Gmail's certificate for SMTP, and the expiration at 11:55am EDT caused many e-mail clients to stop receiving Gmail messages

    If the certificate was "for SMTP", the problem would have affected not just end users, but also peers, i.e. other e-mail providers who wanted to deliver mail to @gmail.com addresses. Or at least they may have automatically fallen back to unencrypted SMTP delivery (which was pretty much the default before Snowden, but anyway).

  2. title wrong by fugas · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Google Internet Authority G2" is NOT a root certificate (subject != issuer).

  3. Re:Why is it good that certificates expire? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    From IBM:

    Question
    FAQ: Why do certificates have an expiration date? (SCI97674)
    Answer
    Digital certificates are breakable and are only considered to be secure for a limited period of time.? As of 2006, a? certificate based on? the standard? 1024 bit encryption string is only considered to be secure for 1-2 years and so certificates should expire and be replaced after no more than 2 years. Note