Patent ID: 8700903

Claim:
A method for acquiring digital certificates from a certificate authority (CA), comprising: receiving an enrollment form with an online CSR generator; capturing on the certificate enrollment form customer information provided by an administrator to generate the digital certificate; generating a private key using the on-line CSR generator; encrypting the private key using an administrator-supplied password; storing the encrypted private key in a transient memory of the client machine from which the certificate enrollment information including the CSR is submitted; sending information to decrypt the encrypted private key; decrypting the private key and storing the private key in the transient memory; determining whether a domain name provided by the administrator has previously been authenticated by the CA as being administrated by the administrator; determining, in response to receiving the enrollment form, whether the administrator's identity has been authenticated; upon determining that the domain name and the administrator's identity are authentic, issuing the digital certificate; delivering, in response to receiving the enrollment form, the digital certificate to the results page of the enrollment form, wherein the digital certificate is delivered through a secure channel; and installing the digital certificate.