When you shouldn’t trust a trusted root certificate [source: malwarebytes]

19 Nov 2017

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Root certificates are the cornerstone of authentication and security in software and on the Internet. They’re issued by a certified authority (CA) and, essentially, verify that the software/website owner is who they say they are. We have talked about certificates in general before, but a recent event triggered our desire for further explanation about the ties between malware and certificates.

In a recent article by RSA FirstWatch, we learned that a popular USB audio driver had silently installed a root certificate. This self-signed root certificate was installed in the Trusted Root Certification Authorities store. Under normal circumstances, you would have to agree to “Always trust software from {this publisher}” before a certificate would be installed there.

However, the audio driver skipped this step of prompting for approval (hence “silently” installing). The silent install was designed to accommodate XP users, but it had the same effect in every Windows operating system from XP up to Windows 10. The installer was exactly the same for every Windows version. Ironically enough, the certificate wasn’t even needed to use the software. It was just introduced to complete the installation on Windows XP seamlessly.

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