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GlobalSign
Company typePrivate company
IndustryComputer security, Internet security, public-key credential issuance
FoundedBelgium (1996; 28 years ago (1996))
Headquarters
City of Brussels Edit this on Wikidata
,
Belgium Edit this on Wikidata
Number of locations
13 regional offices (2021)
Area served
Worldwide
Products
  • TLS certificates, two-factor authentication solutions, managed PKI solutions
ParentGMO Internet
Websitewww.globalsign.com

GlobalSign is a certificate authority and a provider of internet identity and security products.[1] As of January 2015, Globalsign was the 4th largest certificate authority in the world, according to Netcraft.[2]

History

GlobalSign was founded in Belgium in 1996 and acquired in 2007 by GMO group in Japan (formerly GeoTrust Japan).[3]

In September 2011, as a precaution, GlobalSign suspended issuing authentication certificates temporarily after an anonymous hacker going by the name "ComodoHacker" claimed to have compromised their servers, as well as those of other certificate authories.[4] The company took the claim seriously enough to halt the signing/issuing of new certificates while investigating the claims; it resumed issuing certificates a week later.[5] Dutch security company Fox-IT was contracted to analyze the breach and GlobalSign released a security incident report.[6] On December 13, 2011 GlobalSign released its final report on the incident. The report concluded that while GlobalSign's own web server was breached and the certificate of this server was stolen, due to the air gap separating this web server from the certificate-issuing machine (the one holding the company's root certificate), there was no evidence of any rogue certificates issued or any customer data exposed, thus the remedial actions were limited to cancelling their own web server's certificate and patching its software.[5][6] Sophos’s Chester Wisniewski summarized the report and GlobalSign’s response to the incident on his blog and concluded "Not only is the report thorough and convincing, but it appears that GlobalSign took every action, exactly as they should have, both during and after the incident."[7]

As of January 2015, Globalsign was the 4th largest certificate authority in the world according to the Netcraft survey.[2] GlobalSign was the first CA to improve revocation checking for HTTPS pages through the use of a CDN,[8] and the company was also the first to offer IPv6 compliant revocation services ("CRL").[9]

In 2018, GlobalSign became a Qualified Trust Service Provider (QTSP) under the eIDAS regulation in both the European Union and the United Kingdom.[10] In 2021, after the UK left the EU, GlobalSign was approved as the UK's first QTSP.[11]

Services

GlobalSign's services include managed PKI platform, S/MIME certification, TLS certificates, and a cloud-based certificate manager that integrates with Microsoft's AD and user account certifications.[12]

The company also provides certificates to authenticate IoT to address authentication needs in the Internet of Everything (IoE) market and to identity management as a cloud-based service.[13] Its PKI services can scale based on the velocity, variety, and volume of IOT platforms, and can manage the identities of millions of devices.[14]

In November 2012, GlobalSign launched an online service that allows website administrators to confirm that they have correctly configured TLS across their websites and receive actionable guidance on how to remediate any faulty or exploitable TLS configurations.[15]

The company has offices in the US, Europe and throughout Asia.

In 2012, GlobalSign released its free SSL Configuration Checker.[16][17] This tool lets websites check the effectiveness of their TLS configuration and provides remediation steps for websites that want to improve.[16][18]

In 2013, the company introduced its Auto Enrollment Gateway solution (AEG).[19] Using AEG, companies can automate PKI management, certificate provisioning and deployment.[19] The platform integrates with Windows Active Directory.[19]

In 2018, GlobalSign released its IoT Identity Platform.[20] It uses PKI as its identity mechanism and is used in industries including manufacturing, agriculture, smart grid, payments, IoT gateways, and healthcare.[20] One of the features of the platform is IoT Edge Enroll, which companies use to provision and manage the PKI-based identities.[20] Edge Enroll provides device Registration Authority (RA), certificate lifecycle management and other support services.[21] The platform also includes IoT CA Direct and IoT CA Connect.[21]

In May 2022, the latest version of the company’s AEG platform was released.[22] It automatically configures S/MIME certificates in Outlook for Windows using GlobalSign’s cross-platform agent, XPA.[22] XPA sets policies, and automatically enrolls, provisions, and installs certificates.[22]

Acquisition

In 2014 GlobalSign acquired Helsinki-based Ubisecure Solutions, Inc., a privately held identity and access management (IAM) software developer.[23] Ubisecure was spun out of GlobalSign in 2016.[24][25]

Industry Affiliations

See also

Sources and references

  1. ^ "GlobalSign and Infineon Join Forces to Strengthen IoT Trustworthiness". www.iiotnewshub.com. Retrieved 2022-09-22.
  2. ^ a b "SSL Survey". Netcraft.
  3. ^ "Outlook Series | GlobalSign To Compete With VeriSign". outlookseries.com. Retrieved 2022-10-06.
  4. ^ BBC News - GlobalSign stops secure certificates after hack claim. Bbc.co.uk (2011-09-07). Retrieved on 2013-07-26.
  5. ^ a b Whittaker, Zack. "Unpatched server led to GlobalSign breach". ZDNet.
  6. ^ a b Steve Waite (2011-12-13). "Security Incident Report" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-03-23.
  7. ^ Chester Wisniewski (2011-12-15). "Google and EFF propose improvements to HTTPS as GlobalSign releases CA breach report".
  8. ^ CloudFlare Partners With GlobalSign To Make Loading Secure Web Pages Up To 6 Times Faster. TechCrunch (2012-11-01). Retrieved on 2013-07-26.
  9. ^ GlobalSign First CA to Offer Certificate Revocation Status Services over IPv6. Thewhir.com (2013-03-13). Retrieved on 2013-07-26.
  10. ^ "GlobalSign achieves Qualified Trust Service Provider Recognition in Europe". Oct 22, 2018.
  11. ^ "UK: ICO approves first UK eIDAS qualified trust service provider". July 28, 2021.
  12. ^ Strom, David (2022-05-19). "How to choose a certificate management tool". CSO Online. Retrieved 2022-11-07.
  13. ^ "How to deal with IoT challenges through abstraction". 7 April 2016.
  14. ^ Strom, David (2022-05-19). "How to choose a certificate management tool". CSO Online. Retrieved 2023-01-05.
  15. ^ "GlobalSign SSL Configuration Checker Provides Guidance to Reduce Cybercriminals' Ability to Exploit Faulty SSL Configurations". 2012-11-15.
  16. ^ a b Kovacs, Eduard (2013-05-31). "50% of Sites Using GlobalSign SSL Configuration Checker Improved Security in 30 Minutes or Less". softpedia. Retrieved 2022-11-14.
  17. ^ admin (2013-05-30). "GlobalSign Releases Findings of GlobalSign SSL Configuration Checker Evaluation for Q1 of 2013". Web Hosting | Cloud Computing | Datacenter | Domain News. Retrieved 2022-11-14.
  18. ^ admin (2013-05-30). "GlobalSign Releases Findings of GlobalSign SSL Configuration Checker Evaluation for Q1 of 2013". Web Hosting | Cloud Computing | Datacenter | Domain News. Retrieved 2022-11-14.
  19. ^ a b c Kovacs, Eduard (2013-08-22). "GlobalSign Automates Management of Digital Certificates with Auto Enrollment Gateway". softpedia. Retrieved 2022-11-23.
  20. ^ a b c News, Industry (2018-06-26). "GlobalSign launches IoT Identity Platform addressing IoT device security requirements". Help Net Security. Retrieved 2022-11-30. ((cite web)): |last= has generic name (help)
  21. ^ a b News, Industry (2018-06-26). "GlobalSign launches IoT Identity Platform addressing IoT device security requirements". Help Net Security. Retrieved 2022-12-02. ((cite web)): |last= has generic name (help)
  22. ^ a b c "GlobalSign Ready S/MIME feature enables users to secure email certificates". Help Net Security. May 11, 2022.
  23. ^ greg (2014-09-30). "Finland's Ubisecure acquired by GMO Globalsign for IoT Identity - ArcticStartup". Retrieved 2022-11-14.
  24. ^ "GlobalSign IAM is now Ubisecure Inc". November 30, 2016.
  25. ^ greg (2014-09-30). "Finland's Ubisecure acquired by GMO Globalsign for IoT Identity - ArcticStartup". Retrieved 2022-10-25.
  26. ^ "Members". CAB Forum. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  27. ^ a b "GlobalSign joins the Certificate Authority Security Council to upgrade internet security". thepaypers.com. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  28. ^ Murphy, Ian (2019-02-27). "GlobalSign joins Microsoft ISA for mobile security". Enterprise Times. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  29. ^ a b Jacob, Marc (2022-12-15). "GlobalSign rejoint le Cloud Signature Consortium et devient membre du programme de partenaires en signatures cloud Adobe". Global Security Mag Online (in French). Retrieved 2022-12-15.
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