Patent ID: 8806196

Claim:
A method of determining, at a relying party processing device, an authentication and authorization status of a certificate subject making a request for a requested service at the relying party, the method comprising: receiving, at the relying party processing device and from the certificate subject, a request for the requested service at the relying party processing device accompanying a certificate of the certificate subject and a validation server provided status information object for the certificate, the validation server provided status information object including an aggregation of (i) certificate validity status information indicative of a validity of the certificate and (ii) authorization attributes indicative of services that the certificate subject is authorized to access; validating, by the relying party processing device, the certificate using the certificate validity status information from the status information object; comparing, by the relying party processing device, the authorization attributes present in the status information object with access policy attributes associated with the requested service; and granting, by the relying party processing device, the certificate subject access to the requested service if (i) the certificate is validated using the certificate validity status information from the status information object and (ii) the authorization attributes present in the status information object match the access policy attributes associated with the requested service; wherein the use of the status information object at the relying party processing device allows the relying party processing device to carry out authentication and authorization of the certificate subject using the contents of the status information object alone.