CA DigiNotar bankrupt after SSL certificate debacle

US-based company VASCO Data Security International has announced that its Dutch subsidiary, the DigiNotar certificate authority (CA), filed for voluntary bankruptcy in the Haarlem District Court, The Netherlands on Monday 19 September and was officially declared bankrupt on 20 September. A bankruptcy trustee, under the supervision of a judge, has now taken over the management of DigiNotar and will work to liquidate the company.

The Dutch government took over DigiNotar after it was discovered that the company had been compromised and had been used to issue bogus SSL certificates for various major sites, including ones which were used to intercept email in Iran. As further information emerged, the Dutch Telecommunications regulator barred the company from issuing qualified certificates and browser makers issued updates for their products to revoke the untrustworthy root certificates.

In the announcement, VASCO Chairman and CEO T. Kendall Hunt said that "the incident at DigiNotar has no impact on VASCO's core authentication technology," adding that the infrastructures of VASCO and DigiNotar continue to remain completely separated. The executive also notes that the company plans to fully cooperate with the Dutch government in its investigation into those responsible for the attack on DigiNotar.

See also:

• Telecommunications regulator bars DigiNotar from issuing certificates, a report from The H.
• DigiNotar breach due to disastrous security, a report from The H.
• Dutch government takes control of DigiNotar CA, a report from The H.

(crve)