What is the meaning of yellow flags in Microsoft Internet Explorer's icons for critical extensions?
2 years ago
Originally Published: 2004-06-10
Article Number
000056902
Applies To
Keon Certificate Authority
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Issue
What is the meaning of yellow flags in Microsoft Internet Explorer's icons for critical extensions?
Resolution
NOTE: This listing can be accessed in Microsoft Internet Explorer by opening Tools > Internet Options > Content > Certificates > Select a Certificate.

By highlighting an attribute and clicking "What Is", a help description is provided. The meaning of "critical" in regards to attributes is simply that the certificate will not be honored unless the attribute is satisfied. So if you are requiring validation and a validation server is not reachable for some reason, the certificate would not be honored.

The issuer of the certificate makes the determination of which attributes are critical at the time of issue depending on the certificates use and the security policy being applied. This is a Microsoft icon and supplied as an aid. There is no downside, as the same information is available from within the certificate; you can ignore the Icon. The display of the icon is not controlled by RSA. In the case of a failing certificate, the critical attributes would be among the first things to test.

For instance, in the case of a failure when there is a critical validation attribute, you could examine the certificate, determine the URL to the validation server, and paste that URL into a browser. If no document is retrieved, then than the cause is certificate validation failure.
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