Patent ID: 6970862
Filing Date: 2005-11-29
Classification: G06F,G06Q,H04L,Y10S

Abstract:
1. A method in a data processing system for validating digital certificates having a server, an Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) responder, and a certificate authority associating a certificate database including records associated with digital certificates, the method comprising: receiving, at the OCSP responder, an OCSP request associated with a digital certificate generated by the server; creating, by the OCSP responder, a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol database query based on the received OCSP request; sending, by the OCSP responder, the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol database query to the certificate database associated with the certificate authority to determine whether the digital certificate is valid; receiving, at the OCSP responder, a database query result indicating whether the digital certificate matches a corresponding certificate entry stored in one of the certificate database records, wherein the certificate database records store certificates and corresponding certificate information reflecting status of the certificate, permissible values of the certificate information including at least “valid,” “invalid,” “revoked,” “expired,” and “revoked expired”; determining, by the OCSP responder, the validity of the digital certificate based on the database query result; and notifying the server of the determined validity of the digital certificate.