Millions of devices, including Android, Windows, and iPhone phones, have only days left to completely lose Internet access.
A security expert has warned that the upcoming change, which begins Thursday, September 30, could have major repercussions on a variety of devices that make up major household names. The reason for blocking the Internet is the HTTPS security protocol.
Even if you are not familiar with the technical terminology, you have probably heard – or are familiar with – HTTPS (also known as Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure).
When you visit a website in browsers like Chrome, you may notice a lock icon in the address bar.
This indicates that the website is using HTTPS, which means that the site is secure and any information you provide is protected. Why is this important for Android, iPhone and Windows users?
On Thursday, September 30, the root certificate – used to encrypt communications between devices and the web, and what HTTPS requires – will expire.
After this date, devices and web browsers will no longer trust certain certificates called IdentTrust DST Root CA X3.
On the vast majority of devices, this will not cause problems. However, for older devices that have not been updated for years (not eligible to use the new certificate), this may cause them to lose Internet access.
It depends For the blog From Scott Helm, security researcher bets that “some things will crash” next Thursday.
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In an online article, Helm said, “This is not the first time a root CA certificate has expired. I think it’s following the old obsolescence trend.
Affected Root Certificates are issued to us by nonprofit Encrypt, which has issued over two billion certificates in total – a large part of the web.
For iPhone users, you need to make sure that an update below iOS 10 is not working. For Android smartphone users, make sure you have Google version 7.1.1 running.
Windows users need to make sure that nothing less than Windows XP SP3 is working. If you have a Mac, you need to make sure that the version below 10.12.1 is not working.
Helm said there are some other platforms that need to “further investigate whether they will fail after the Identrust DST Root CA X3 expires”.
This includes the Amazon Kindle e-readers running a patch below 3.4.1 and the PS4 game console running below 5.00 firmware.
Here is a complete list of affected software versions:
– OpenSSL <= 1.0.2
– Windows
– Makos <10.12.1
– iOS <10 (iPhone 5 is the cheapest model to access iOS 10)
– “Android” <7.1.1
– Mozilla Firefox <50
– Ubuntu <16.04
– دبيان <8
– Java 8 <8u141
Java 7 <7u151
– NSS <3.26
– Amazon FireOS (Silk Browser)
Source: Express
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