OIT renews security certificate for faculty and staff email

The security certificate for Central Michigan University’s faculty and staff email system has been renewed by the Office of Information Technology.

A security certificate is a security registration for a website or system that confirms the party is who it says it is.

“It applies to secured connections. This is registered with a trusted, third-party security firm so that most browsers and devices know to automatically trust the secured connection,” OIT communications manager Kole Taylor said via email.

The old security certificate for the faculty and staff email system was set to expire soon, Kole said.

“Certificates have a finite lifespan, so they need to be renewed every so often,” Kole said.

With the new security certificate in place, most people shouldn’t experience any difficulties, although some browsers might prompt the user to accept the new certificate.

“To my knowledge, this has not been the case, or in the few cases where it might have happened, it has been simple enough to accept the new certificate that people have not encountered enough trouble to report it,” Kole said.

Since certificates expire, it is required to renew them occasionally.

“If we don’t, people will begin receiving ‘Are you sure you trust this site?’ prompts from their browsers, or even worse, certain security settings or devices will block access entirely,” Kole said.

If any problems are encountered, users are asked to contact the OIT desk for help at (989) 774-3662 or via email at helpdesk@cmich.edu.