Patent ID: 6981139

Claim:
A digital certificate management system in which a client/server system constructed by one or more clients and one or more servers is connected to a digital certificate management apparatus capable of communicating with each of the clients and each of the servers, mutual authentication being performed between the clients and the servers by using digital certificates in the client/server system and communications being performed over a communication channel established based on the mutual authentication, wherein the digital certificate management apparatus comprises: a certification key update part updating a server certification key that is a certification key for verifying a server certificate that is one of the digital certificates, used for the mutual authentication by each of the servers, and stored in each of the clients that becomes a communication party of one of the servers, the server certification key being different from a client certification key that is a certification key for verifying a client certificate that is another one of the digital certificates, used for the mutual authentication by each of the clients, and stored in each of the servers that becomes a communication party for one of the clients, the certification key updating part including: a key obtaining part obtaining a new server certification key for updating; a certificate obtaining part obtaining a new server certificate that is used by each of the servers for the mutual authentication and can be verified by using the new server certification key; a first transmission part transmitting the new server certification key to each of the clients; and a second transmission part transmitting, to each of the servers, the new server certificate of the server, the second transmission part performing an operation of transmitting the new server certificate to each of the servers after there are responses, indicating that the new server certification key is received, from all of the clients that become communication parties of the server.