Patent ID: 8826006

Claim:
A method for enabling a trust relationship using an unexpired public key infrastructure (PKI) certificate where a current status of the PKI certificate is unavailable, the method comprising: determining at a relying party device that a certificate status update for the PKI certificate is unavailable; determining at the relying party device, in response to the certificate status update being unavailable, a tolerable certificate status age (TCSA) for the PKI certificate based on one or more attributes associated with a certificate holder of the PKI certificate, wherein the TCSA is an interval during which an unexpired certificate can be conditionally trusted despite a lack of a timely certificate status update and further wherein the TCSA conforms to the following equation: TCSA =( T _Current− T _BeginUncertainty)+ T (attributes), wherein T_Current denotes a current time when the certificate holder is attempting to authenticate with the relying party, T_BeginUncertainty denotes a beginning of an interval in which the relying party is unable to detect a revocation of the PKI certificate, and T(attributes) conforms to the following bounds: 0≦ T (attributes)≦Max TCSA −( T _Current− T _BeginUncertainty) wherein MaxTCSA is greater than or equal to TCSA; and enabling, using the PKI certificate, a trust relationship between the relying party and the certificate holder after calculating the TCSA and before an expiration of the TCSA.