What is a certificate log?

What does certificate log mean?

This document describes an experimental protocol for publicly logging the existence of Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificates as they are issued or observed, in a manner that allows anyone to audit certificate authority (CA) activity and notice the issuance of suspect certificates as well as to audit the certificate logs themselves.

Certificate Transparency began as a way to catch an authority issuing a certificate it should not. Today publicly trusted certificates are written to logs run by several independent operators. Anyone can read them.

For a firm, the logs are a record of its own host names and of names made from its own. A look-alike or a lure domain that is given a certificate appears there with its date, often before its first email is sent.

Because the log keeps every entry, it also shows history: when a name first had a certificate, who issued it and which other names shared it. That date is often the earliest public trace of a new look-alike.

Where does it show up in a reading?

In a LeakTrace reading it is read under “Host names on your domain”: host names on your domain, from its own records and public certificate logs.

In a LeakTrace reading it is read under “Look-alike names”: names made from yours, each asked whether it is registered and set up for mail.

The first certificate date of a look-alike on a site builder or static host is printed beside it where it is recent.

Which pages use this term?

• Look-alike domains: questions and answers
• Look-alike domain
• Lure domain
• Registrar hold