Patent ID: 8108917

Claim:
A management apparatus for managing a digital certificate which is written with a period of validity, comprising: a storage unit configured to store a target digital certificate, which comprises information regarding the period of validity of the target digital certificate; a hardware-implemented processor configured to control: a certificate displaying unit to display information relating to the target digital certificate, which is stored in the storage unit, responding to a viewing request signal inputted through an interface; a transmission condition judgment unit to refer to the target digital certificate and to judge whether a predetermined transmission condition is satisfied based on an elapsed time from a last displaying time of information relating to the target digital certificate by the certificate displaying unit and the period of validity of the target digital certificate; a mail generating unit to generate an e-mail provided with link information to a web page where updating operation on the target digital certificate is acceptable if the predetermined transmission condition is judged as satisfied by the transmission condition judgment unit; a destination setting unit to set a destination e-mail address of the e-mail generated by the mail generating unit; and a mail transmission unit to transmit the e-mail generated by the mail generating unit to the destination e-mail address set by the destination setting unit; wherein the predetermined transmission condition is judged to be satisfied, such that the mail generating unit generates the e-mail, when the remaining time to the period of validity written in the digital certificate is less than or equal to a predetermined threshold and the elapsed time is greater than or equal to a predetermined criterion time; wherein the predetermined transmission condition is judged to be not satisfied, such that the mail generating unit does not generate the e-mail, when the remaining time to the period of validity written in the digital certificate is greater than the predetermined threshold or the elapsed time is less than the predetermined criterion time; and wherein the predetermined criterion time is different than a time from a last updating time of the target certificate.