SSL misconfiguration error on bing.com

NEWARK, Del. - April 22, 2013 - PRLog -- On Friday 19 April 2013 at 9a.m. PT, a security certificate trips up warning on the leading search engine Bing when visitors tried to access the browser with HTTPS it showed a warning message. Microsoft has blamed Akamai and reported that it happened due to misconfiguration of X.509 certificate on Bing search engine.

The warning message also displayed on internet explorer that the site might be have problem with security certificate and stating that the certificate was issued for a different website’s address.

In Firefox browser the error contained "only valid for the following names: a248.e.akamai.net, *.akamaihd.net, *.akamaihd-staging.net."

Firefox said that the Bing was using invalid certificate and cautioned. This site identity has not been verified and this site is not secure for further communication. Someone is trying to imitate and inform users not to connect with it. In technical terms the certificate was "only valid for the following names: a248.e.akamai.net, *.akamaihd.net, *.akamaihd-staging.net."

Chrome browser also warned users that show notice “Users have reached on “a248.e.akamai.net” server instead of www.bing.com, which is a misconfiguration of certificate. As a result, attacker could take you to fake website similar to bing.com therefore; you should not proceed on this site.”

The certificate error was seen on four major internet browsers including IE, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome.

Even this certificate error also affected https://www.nba.com, and other Akamai clients. With this warning, a question regarding website’s identity was raised.

Mostly people do not know the technical term HTTP and HTTPS. Generally, HTTPS shows that your website is secured with SSL security certificate. The address bar starts with HTTPS shows that the online communication between the server and the browser is encrypted and the website is valid for online transactions like debit card, cash transfer, credit card. Therefore, others cannot interpret the data flowing between the browser and the server.

Microsoft representative William Zollicoffer said, "We're working with Akamai on that. It should be fixed soon".

Gregory Webb, VP Marketing at Venafi, told “Digital certificates and encryption keys are frequently thought of as largely security technologies, yet many enterprises don’t realize the critical role they play to enable smooth operations. Certificates are necessary to ensure systems, servers and applications properly connect and share information.”

After this certificate error warning if visitor clicks on “Proceed anyway” he will be directed to Bing.com with HTTP prefix then visitors could have loss of confidential information. However, it will be a direct invitation to hackers on your website without a proper security certificate.

This error shows that a simple SSL certificate misconfiguration error can affect millions of customers, site functioning, revenues, and especially to BRAND name. It is a human being error and deficiency of PKI know-how.