Checking certificates for revocation excludes the possibility that an application or user will accept credentials that have been revoked by a Certification Authority administrator. A certificate is considered valid until its expiration date. However, various circumstances may cause a certificate to become invalid prior to the expiration of the validity period. Such circumstances include change of name, change of association between subject and Certification Authority and compromise or suspected compromise of the corresponding private key. Under such circumstances, the issuing Certification Authority needs to revoke the certificate. In order to get the revocation status of a certificate, open the certificate (click on Menu File > Open > Open Certificate) and click on Get Revocation Status button.

When checking the revocation status of a certificate, the following situations may be found: