CAissued

CAissued is a term used to describe digital certificates that have been issued by a recognized certificate authority (CA) rather than being self-signed. In the public-key infrastructure (PKI) used for securing communications and data, CA-issued certificates form the basis of the chain of trust that clients, such as web browsers, rely on to validate identities and establish secure connections.

The issuance process generally begins with the certificate signing request (CSR) generated by the entity that owns the certificate. The CA verifies details according to the requested validation level—domain validation (DV), organization validation (OV), or extended validation (EV)—and then issues a certificate that binds the public key to the approved identity. The issued certificate is accompanied by a chain of trust that may include intermediate certificates linking to a trusted root certificate stored in client devices and software.

CAissued certificates are widely used for TLS/SSL in websites, code signing, S/MIME email security, and other applications requiring verifiable identity and data integrity. They are trusted by default by modern browsers and hardware/software trust stores, provided the chain remains intact and the certificate has not expired or been revoked. They differ from self-signed certificates, which are not inherently trusted by clients and require manual exception handling or internal trust stores.

Key considerations for CAissued certificates include proper key management, regular renewal before expiry, monitoring for revocation, and supporting modern security practices such as strong cryptographic algorithms, short-lived certificates where appropriate, and automated provisioning via protocols like ACME. Public ecosystem trends, such as free DV certificates from Let’s Encrypt, have increased automation and accessibility, while larger organizations may seek OV or EV certificates for higher assurance.