System and method for validating certificate issuance notification messages
View Patent ↗To validate a received certificate issuance notification message, a device may verify that the certificate issuance notification message conforms to expected norms or authenticate a signature associate with the certificate issuance notification message. Upon validating, the device may then transmit a uniform resource locator, extracted from the certificate issuance notification message, to a network entity configured for processing certificate issuance.
1. A method, for being performed by a mail server having a receiver, a processor and a transmitter, of validating a certificate issuance notification message, the method comprising:
receiving, at the receiver, a message;
determining, at the processor, that the message comprises a certificate issuance notification message;
verifying, by determining, at the processor, that a size of the message is less than a predetermined maximum message size, that the certificate issuance notification message conforms to expected norms specific to certificate issuance notification messages;
extracting, from the certificate issuance notification message, a uniform resource locator: and
responsive to the verifying, transmitting, at the transmitter, the uniform resource locator to a network entity configured for processing certificate issuance.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein the determining that the message comprises a certificate issuance notification message comprises determining that a sender of the message is a certificate authority.
3. The method of claim 1 further comprising extracting a plurality of uniform resource locators from the certificate issuance notification message.
4. The method of claim 3 wherein the verifying that the certificate issuance notification message conforms to expected norms specific to certificate issuance notification messages further comprises determining that a quantity of the plurality of the extracted uniform resource locators is less than a maximum expected count of uniform resource locators.
5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
receiving an instruction from the network entity; and
responsive to the instruction, activating certificate issuance notification message handling.
6. The method of claim 1 further comprising retrieving, from a location specified by the uniform resource locator, a certificate.
7. The method of claim 6 further comprising transmitting, at the transmitter, the certificate to a user device for storage in the key store of the user device.
8. A mail server comprising:
a receiver adapted to receive a message;
a processor adapted to:
determine that the message comprises a certificate issuance notification message;
verify, by determining that a size of the message is less than a predetermined maximum message size, that the certificate issuance notification message conforms to expected norms specific to certificate issuance notification messages; and
extract a uniform resource locator from the certificate issuance notification message; and
a transmitter adapted to transmit the uniform resource locator to a network entity configured for processing certificate issuance.
9. A non-transitory computer-readable medium containing computer-executable instructions that, when performed by a processor in a mail server, cause the processor to:
receive a message;
determine that the message comprises a certificate issuance notification message;
verify, by determining that a size of the message is less than a predetermined maximum message size, that the certificate issuance notification message conforms to expected norms specific to certificate issuance notification messages;
extract a uniform resource locator from the certificate issuance notification message; and
transmit the uniform resource locator to a network entity configured for processing certificate issuance