Comodo Emerging as a Leading, Global Provider of EV SSL Certificates

April 30, 2008; 09:34 AM

Jersey City, NJ (April 30, 2008) - Comodo, a global Certification Authority (CA) and leading provider of Identity and Trust Assurance Management solutions, announced today that they have seen a dramatic increase in the number of companies coming to Comodo for their EV and EV SGC SSL Certificates. Notably, a large proportion of these EV SSL Certificates are expiring certificates from other providers and these companies are renewing their EV SSL Certificates with Comodo. EV SSL Certificates have increasingly become the standard for SSL certificates because they provide site visitors added identity authentication through a visual browser-based indicator that turns the site's URL green when a secure session is initiated. This indicator enables the visitor to authenticate both the identity of a site's owner and the Certification Authority (CA) that issued the EV Certificate. As EV SSL Certificates enter their second year in the market, Comodo is capturing a large share of all renewing EV SSL Certificates industry-wide.

Online business of all types are recognizing the importance of EV SSL Certificates for their sites because they provide consumers using Internet Explorer 7 with instantly recognizable visual cues that help assure them they are on an authenticated Web page and not a phishing site. This new green "trust" indicator confirms that the transaction is encrypted and the organization has been authenticated according to the most rigorous industry standard including:

• The legal, physical and operational existence of the entity
• The identity of the entity as specified on official records from public databases (instead of obtaining documents directly from the eMerchant).
• The entity's exclusive right to use the domain specified in the EV certificate, and
• The entity's proper authorization for the issuance of the EV certificate

When a financial institution or other online business uses an EV SSL Certificate, browsers such as IE 7 and the latest beta version of Firefox 3 will turn the address bar green in addition to providing the name of the organization that owns the site and the CA provider that issued the certificate. Comodo is emerging as the EV SSL provider of choice because of a powerful combination of proprietary deployment technologies that reduce costs along with a cost structure that represents a saving of potentially thousands of dollars versus other certificate brands.

1) EV AUTO-Enhancer™ - Automatic Deployment and Maintenance Technology
EV AUTO-Enhancer™ - Comodo's Automatic Deployment and Maintenance Technology is patent-pending technology that has a number of key benefits that are unmatched by any competitor; it eliminates costly manual EV SSL deployment (in most cases); it ensures that the EV "green bar" is always seen the first time a user visits a website, it enables the EV "green bar" to be seen by users who have disabled Javascript in their browsers, and it eliminates browser error warnings if the Windows Auto Root Update facility has been disabled. Finally, unlike EV certificates from many other CAs, Comodo's EV SGC SSL Certificates continue to work correctly for customers who install certain Windows Updates on their IIS servers These capabilities are deemed especially important by customers because Comodo EV SSL certificates ensures that the widest proportion of all site visitors can see the important green URL address bar.

EV AUTO-Enhancer™ automatically installs Comodo's new EV root certificate into the trusted root store of the user's browser whenever an https session is initiated. This process is seamlessly carried out during the SSL handshake with the web server and is completely transparent to the end user. Organizations that use Comodo EV SSL Certificates can be assured that their site visitors can see the green bar immediately. Comodo's innovative technology allows customers to reassure site visitors more easily and more cost effectively than many other EV SSL brands.

2) Auto CSR request and Auto Installation Technology
Comodo continues to innovate with new automated provisioning tools to make SSL deployment faster and easier. These automated SSL provisioning tools provide process automation efficiency for key functions, including private key generation, creation of CSRs (Certificate Signing Requests), and even auto installation of SSL Certificate. The new automation tools have been developed for both Apache and IIS (6.0) servers, which represent the vast majority of servers in the market.

Auto provisioning tools for Apache Servers include:

• auto generation of the private key
• creation of the CSR automatically
• ability to automatically collect the certificate. This auto process is delivered to customers in one file for simpler and faster deployment.

Auto provisioning tools for IIS 6.0 servers:

• Free software that will enable a virtual one-step SSL deployment process:
  • automatically generate the private and public keys
  • automatically create the CSR
  • collect the certificate and automatically install it onto the server – all by just a simple login into a customer's account.

The two new auto SSL installation tools, in combination with the EV AUTO-Enhancer technology, are designed to help customers reduce the cost and complexity of SSL certificates deployment, important considerations when selecting an SSL provider.

3) Comodo Cost Advantage
Comodo has a well earned reputation for value and Comodo EV SSL Certificates represents a significant savings over the other large brands. Comodo's EV SGC SSL Certificate at $599, (comparable to VeriSign's Secure Site Pro) delivers a savings of nearly $1,000. Comodo EV SGC SSL Certificates include technology that upgrades PCs using older browsers so they can connect at full 128- or 256-bit encryption levels. This provides extra security for more users (especially those using older browsers) which means more opportunity to convert more sales.

EV SSL Certificates have emerged as a critical solution to protect site visitors from phishing scams that lure unsuspecting consumers to imposter sites that appear identical to genuine Web pages. Identity thieves use these sites to steal sensitive personal information and EV SSL Certificates provide important consumer protection against this threat. "For Comodo, the real currency of doing business online is about creating trust online," said Melih Abdulhayoglu, CEO and Chief Security Architect of Comodo. "EV SSL certificates are one of the cornerstone identity and trust assurance tools that businesses have to create trust. Comodo championed the creation of this level of online trust and we are proud that as EV SSL Certificates gets more traction, more and more businesses are turning to us for our value innovation in this space."

For more information, please visit: http://www.instantssl.com/ssl-certificate-products/addsupport/ev-ssl-sgc.html