...I would like to create SMIME certificates myself, that also works with the openssl commands. The only problem is that Outlook does not seem to accept self signed SMIME certificates. Is there another solution for this? It would be important for me not to buy the certificates externally.
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I've a self-extracting .exe created with 7zip (7z.sfx). I've signed it with signtool. The signing certificate is in my Local Machine store, and it's root certificate is in the "Trusted root certificate authorities" and "Trusted publishers" folders.
I would like the signature details to appear in the publisher field of the UAC prompt, but it still shows "Unknown Publisher". Anyone know what's going on? The certificate does not have the "Code signing" EKU. Will this cause the problem?
This person had a similar problem, with no answers. This question covers code signing in detail but it's still not working for me.
Ok, perhaps as I suspected, the EKU for code signing is essential for UAC. There's no problem generating the signature with a vanilla certificate, but UAC will ignore signatures generated with non code-signing certificates, even if those certificates are in Trusted Publisers, Trusted Root Authorities etc..
the eku for code signing is 1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.3
The following PowerShell command gets you a self signed code signing cert...
New-SelfSignedCertificate -certstorelocation cert:\localmachine\my -dnsname sby-port -type CodeSigningCert
I am using a standard (i.e. not EV) Authenticode code signing certificate to sign a Windows desktop application in the hope that Smartscreen Filter will eventually stop blocking it.
I was hoping to certify the application but since my code signing certificate was issued by GoDaddy it appears that I can't do that since you need a certificate from Symantec, Entrust, GlobalSign, WoSign or Digicert in order to create a Windows Certification Dashboard account (the first step in the certification process).
So here's my question: Will my non-certified Windows application signed with a standard GoDaddy SHA-2 code signing certificate still accumulate reputation?
According to these article, most likely yes, but you need to check details in your certificate
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/51151.microsoft-trusted-root-certificate-program-participants-as-of-january-30-2018.aspx
How would I sign a Visual C# executable?
SignTool.exe can't find a certificate.
How would I create a self signed key and certificate, and have signtool be able to see the certificate and use it?
OpenSSL and Visual Studio 2010 Express are installed. Running Windows 7 Ultimate x64.
Using SignTool.exe from Windows Driver Kit.
Using self-signed certificates for digitally signing your binaries pretty much goes against the concept of using digital certificates with programs. The basic idea is to prove the code was created by you (authenticity) and has not been modified since you released it (integrity). This must be done by using a signed certificate that is signed by a trusted Certificate Authority (CA).
With .Net, when a binary is digitally signed, it is automatically verified for integrity and authenticity during startup. While I have not personally tested this, using a self-signed certificate is probably going to cause you a great deal of problems.
If you want to digitally sign your programs, you need to invest in a code signing certificate from a CA. There are a number of companies out there that can provide this service (Verisign, Thawte), for a fee.
While the fee might seem a bit extreme in price, remember that you are not just purchasing a digital certificate but also 24/7 validation of that certificate. Any time someone starts your program it will ensure the program was written by you and that the program has not been changed since you released it.
Once you have a certificate, you can digitally sign your program by following the steps in How to: Sign Application and Deployment Manifests.
Update: If this program is strictly an internal application (limited to you or your business), you can created your own CA. Since you would be the only one running it, only you would need to validate it. The CA certificate would need to be installed as a Trusted Root Certificate on all the machines that would run the program (or if you have access to Windows Server, you could set up a real working CA).
ClickOnce is suppose to use a signing cert for distribution. If I was developing a major app, I could understand purchasing a cert. However, my app is for a small sized company and I cannot justify the expensive.
My question is, when my app first installs, how might I install my self signed Root CA into Trusted Root Certificates automatically so there are no issues with my self signed program?
My current self signed CA Root and program cert were setup between Exchange 2010/IIS 7.0 and OpenSSL. The clients will be remote so I do not want to use Microsoft's Certificate Authority. You can see how I developed the certs at http://www.tekcrack.com/creating-your-own-self-signed-sans-certificate-for-exchange-2010-and-iis-70-1of3.html
Has anyone encountered the same problem? What route did you take to work around it...for free?
I don't know if that certificate will work for ClickOnce deployment. What you need is a code-signing certificate. I think you can buy one from GoDaddy for less than a hundred bucks, which is pretty inexpensive for giving your customers that nice warm feeling of having a trusted publisher.
If your customer has a domain administrator and any kind of central IT group, they can create a certificate for you that will be trusted.
You can't install a certificate programmatically on the user's computer. A ClickOnce application will not have that level of privilege. You have to have the customers install the certificate. Plus, it would be a huge security gap if people could install certificates without the user's knowledge.
And my last words of wisdom -- be sure your certificate is password-protected, and nobody can get their hands on it. If they do, and the certificate is installed in the store on the users's computer, they will be able to install applications on the user's computer in your name.
Having said all of that, I think this article will be helpful to you:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms996418.aspx#clickoncetrustpub_topic1
I have developed a couple of extensions for Firefox, and am annoyed that it is so hard to get the extension signed. When an extension isn't signed, it says "Author not verified" when it is installed, and to me that just looks wrong.
I have a simple build script that builds my .xpi file from sources, and I have a licenced copy of PKZip (which according to a number of tutorials is required to build a signed xpi file that Firefox requires), but I haven't found a way to get a free/cheap certificate that actually works or a set of instructions that do the trick.
Since my extensions are free, I don't want to spend $400 on a commercial certificate, but I don't mind spending $50 or so to get it done. I have both Linux and Windows machines, although my build script currently uses Windows and that would be most convenient to use.
How have you solved this? What do I need to do to automatically and securely sign my extensions when they are built?
Edit: I appreciate the Google hits, but the steps they provide aren't complete enough on how to actually get a certificate that works. The feeling I get reminds me of this classic:
Avoid the GoDaddy codesigning certs as the necessary intermediate CA certificate isn't in Firefox by default.
C=US,ST=Arizona,L=Scottsdale,O=GoDaddy.com\,Inc.,OU=http://certificates.godaddy.com/repository,CN=Go Daddy Secure Certification Authority,SERIALNUMBER=07969287'
If you sign with it your users will get signing errors with it.
e.g. SIgning could not be verified. -260
I've used the comodo certificate to sign XPIs. It was the cheapest option at the time.
I've written a few posts on the XPI Format and a howto for signing using a java commandline tool.
My tool XPISigner simplifies the process considerably and is integratable into build systems.
I've removed the tool as it no longer works with FF4 or higher. Source is available on http://code.google.com/p/xpisigner/ if anyone feels like fixing.
What I found with Google was this: http://www.mercille.org/snippets/xpiSigning.php which states:
If you don't want a commercial
certificate or can't afford one,
Ascertia can provide you with a free
certificate, but turning it into a
code signing certificate requires some
extra work, which I have detailed on
another page.
I can't say that I've tried it.
And on http://developer.mozilla.org/en/Signing_a_XPI it says:
The cheapest universally supported
(Mozilla, Java, Microsoft) certificate
seems to be the Comodo Instant-SSL
offering. You can get a free
certificate for open-source developers
from Unizeto Certum, but their root
certificate is only present in Mozilla
Firefox and Opera (not Java or
Microsoft).
Yes, XPI signing is unfortunately quite untrivial. I would advise searching/posting to the mozilla newsgroups (dev-extensions, project owners # mozdev, irc.mozilla.org) and also trying to get in touch with the people who got it to work.
Tucows sells Comodo code signing certificates for $75 per year, that's as cheap as it goes from what I can tell (https://author.tucows.com/, "Code Signing Certificates" section). That's still too much money for me to spend so I didn't try how it works. Not that I can try, from what I can tell you need to be a registered organization to buy a Comodo certificate.
As to Ascertia, getting a certificate is easy enough (http://www.ascertia.com/onlineCA/Issuer/CerIssue.aspx) - but such a certificate is as worthless as a self-issued certificate because you would need to import their root certificate before seeing an effect.
If you have an Open Source project, you can get a free code signing certificate from Unizeto.
The steps to get the certificate itself are described in detail here.
Once you have the certificate, do the following:
get the private key from your browser (e.g. download it as .p12 from your keychain - do not set a password) and convert it into PEM format via openssl pkcs12 -in key.p12 -nodes -out private.key -nocerts
Open your .pem file that you downloaded from Unicert, add your private key beneath it, and the Public Key of Certum Level III CA from here beneath the private key, so it looks like this:
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
[your certificate from Certum]
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
[the private key you just converted from the .p12 file from your keychain]
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
[the Certum Level III CA public key you just downloaded]
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
Save this file as cert_with_key_and_ca.pem
Install xpisign.py with pip install https://github.com/nmaier/xpisign.py/zipball/master
Run xpisign -k cert_with_key_and_ca.pem unsigned.xpi signed.xpi
Drag & Drop the signed.xpi into Firefox and you should see the author name where before there was a (Author not verified) message next to the extension name.