Certificate Trust Settings problem

Question

Certificate Trust Settings problem

Hello,

My broadband provider has private hotspots in my city. I use a username and password to log into it.

When I've tried to log onto this network, I get a popup box titled VERIFY CERTIFICATE.

The box says:

Authenticating to network “<name of network>"

Before authenticating to server “<name of network>”, you should examine the server’s certificate to ensure that it is appropriate for this network.

To view the certificate, click “Show Certificate”.

My choices are: SHOW CERTIFICATE | CANCEL | CONTINUE

I click “Show Certificate” and the info shows an arrow in a green circle with “This certificate is valid”

The certificate is issued by Symantec, expires in 2016.

All seems normal, so I click CONTINUE and a Keychain alert box pops up saying:

You are making changes to your Certificate Trust Settings. Type your password to allow this.

Since I'm not making any changes to my Certificate Trust Settings and am in a public place, I don’t enter my password. Instead, I hit CANCEL, and then suddenly I connect to the network anyway.

Is it safe to proceed on this network in this way? Is there something I need to fix to stop this from appearing?

This is on a Mac Book Pro running OS 10.9.5.

Thanks.

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)

Posted on Sep 13, 2015 8:07 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

chuck_3rd

Community Specialist

Sep 15, 2015 6:11 AM in response to hello tuesday

Hi there,

I see from your post that you're concerned about a certificate verification message popping up when connecting to a network. If you want to continue connecting to that network, then you will need to simply click on continue and type in your administrator password. This is likely occurring because the root certificate isn't trusted by your computer, and you must authenticate it before it can be trusted. To get this to stop appearing in the future, you should see an option to "Always Trust."

In the Verify Certificate dialog, click Show Certificate.

Review the certificate, then if you have confidence in the server or signature, select the checkbox to always trust the certificate or to acknowledge the signature is valid.
For information about current trust policies, click the Details disclosure triangle. To learn more about trust policies, see:

Certificate trust policies

Click Connect or OK. If prompted, enter your account password.
If the certificate is a root certificate, enter the name and password of an administrator of the Mac you’re using.

If you want to change a certificate’s trust policy later, use Keychain Access.

Mail (Mavericks): Trust a certificate

OS X Mavericks: Certificate trust policies

Take care.

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Answer 2

Sep 15, 2015 7:56 AM in response to chuck_3rd

Thanks very much, alex_h1.

You wrote:

This is likely occurring because the root certificate isn't trusted by your computer,

And Apple wrote:

Review the certificate, then if you have confidence in the server or signature,

Before I go ahead and override the system defaults, how do I determine the validity of a certificate? If my computer isn't trusting the root certificate, isn't that a sign that I shouldn't either?

Thanks again.

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Certificate Trust Settings problem