Domain Control Validation (DCV) Methods & How to Choose

You can trust digital certificates issued by reputable Certificate Authorities (CAs) because they go through a domain control validation (DCV) process, which verifies the legitimacy of the entity requesting the SSL/TLS certificate and the domain ownership for which the certificate is issued.

This article reviews what DCV is, the most common DCV methods, and how to choose an appropriate method- for your certificate application.

What is domain control validation?

CAs perform domain control validation before issuing an SSL/TLS certificate to confirm the entity requesting the certificate is authorized to use the domain in question. The process ensures the party applying for the certificate has the right to secure that domain with the SSL/TLS certificate.

DCV is a critical step in SSL/TLS certificate issuance. The process helps:

• Prevent fraudulent certificate issuance by ensuring CAs only issue digital certificates to legitimate domain owners, establishing trust and security on the internet.
• Verify domain ownership to prevent bad actors from obtaining SSL / TLS certificates for domains they don’t own.
• Protect against phishing and man-in-the-middle attacks by preventing criminals from mimicking trusted websites and tricking users into entering sensitive information.
• Ensure data confidentiality and integrity with robust encryption algorithms to protect information transmitted between browsers and website servers.
• Protect online reputation by showing the organization with the SSL / TLS certificate takes security seriously.

The most common DCV methods

CAs use various DCV methods to verify domain ownership. These add flexibility to the process and accommodate different scenarios to ensure secure and reliable issuance of SSL/TLS certificates. Here are the most common:

Email-based validation

The CA sends an email to a predefined email address associated with the domain used to create the certificate signing request (CSR). The email address is typically generic, such as postmaster@domain.com, hostmaster@example.com, and webmaster@domain.com. The certificate applicant will log in to the account and follow the instructions in the email, such as responding

[…]
Content was cut in order to protect the source.Please visit the source for the rest of the article.