Version 2.0 of Multi-Platform Software Solution CERTivity KeyStores Manager released by EduLib

CERTivityEduLib, a privately held software development company from Craiova, Romania announces the release of the latest version of CERTivity KeyStores Manager – CERTivity 2.0, a major improvement version that provides many new useful features and also important updates and bug fixes.

"CERTivity 2.0 represents a major milestone for EduLib", said Mihai Popa, CEO at EduLib. "Our team has done a great job in taking CERTivity to the next level, closer to a complete solution for developers in the Public Key Infrastructure, Cryptographic Keys Management and Digital Signing domains".

CERTivity 2.0 features support for Elliptic Curve (EC) Algorithms in Key Pair generation. We support both ECDSA and ECGOST3410 algorithms. For each algorithm we support a set of defined parameters specification and signature algorithms. So, for ECDSA we support a set of eighty parameters specification and five signature algorithms. Also, for ECGOST3410 we support a set of five parameters specification and one signature algorithm.

We added support for managing and using Elliptic Curve (ECDSA and ECGOST) Algorithms Key Pairs and Certificates. These can be used for signature, import, export and any other operations where RSA and DSA keys can be used, as long as the underlying standards support them. Management support for EC keys include: Select CA Issuer, Sign by CA Issuer, Generate CSR, Import CA Reply, Generate Key Pair Signed by CA Issuer, Regenerate Key Pair, Extend Validity, Convert KeyStore type, Append to certificate chain, export/import EC Key Pairs and parts of the Key Pair, Copy/Paste and other operations.

With the newest version of CERTivity, the process of installing the Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) Unlimited Strength Jurisdiction Policy Files is greatly improved, by offering an innovative and easy to use wizard within an integrated JavaFX browser.

"The usage of the Unlimited Strength Jurisdiction Policy Files is under the import restrictions of some countries, so it is the user's responsibility to decide if (s)he is entitled to use them" said David Dascalescu, CTO at EduLib. "That is why we cannot ship them, but we allow the entitled users to get and deploy them with just few clicks from the official JDK web site."

The JCE Unlimited Strength Jurisdiction Policy Files are required in order to remove default restrictions regarding the cryptographic algorithms and maximum cryptographic strengths available by default in the JCE framework. For example, the JCE Unlimited Strength Jurisdiction Policy Files are required in order to support PKCS#12 / Uber KeyStore files that use passwords larger than 7 characters.

Another important improvement is the addition of full support for eleven new certificate extensions, thus covering all standard certificate extensions according to Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List (CRL) Profile - RFC 5280.

Like the previous versions of CERTivity, the latest version is built on top of the NetBeans platform, but using a newer version of NetBeans RPC, namely the RELEASE74. CERTivity 2.0 provides many new features and improvements which aim to reduce and simplify the work of the user.

We have also added features which improve the user experience such as Quick Search for application, Quick Search for an opened KeyStore, filter for the Options Panel, KeyStore related actions displayed in the context menu, when right-clicking on an empty area inside an opened KeyStore.

In this version of CERTivity we have also fixed some issues from version 1.2, such as correcting the management of the cut/copy/paste actions for PKCS#12 KeyStore type or Help window displaying under the main window on Mac OS X and other usability issues.

As done for the previous versions, for CERTivity 1.2 EduLib offers a trial period of 30 days to fully evaluate the new features of the new version even for users which have tried the previous versions.

The new features and updates offered by CERTivity 2.0 are available from EduLib at https://www.edulib.com/tools/keystores-manager/.

This press release was distributed on behalf of our company listed above, through: PR-inside, PRLOG, i-Newswire.

EduLib is happy to announce the release of CERTivity KeyStores Manager 2.0, that is available for download, starting today, the 23rd of January 2014. The version 2.0 of CERTivity KeyStores Manager brings new interesting features and improvements, as well as bug fixes.

CERTivity 2.0 features support for generating and managing Elliptic Curve (ECDSA and ECGOST) Algorithms Key Pairs and Certificates, an innovative and easy to use wizard for installing Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) Unlimited Strength Jurisdiction Policy Files via an integrated JavaFX browser, full support for eleven new certificate extensions, thus covering all standard certificate extensions according to Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List (CRL) Profile - RFC 5280.

We have also added features which improve the user experience such as Quick Search for application, Quick Search for an opened KeyStore, filter for the Options Panel, KeyStore related actions displayed in the context menu, when right-clicking on an empty area inside an opened KeyStore.

In this version of CERTivity we have also fixed some issues from version 1.2, such as correcting the management of the cut/copy/paste actions for PKCS#12 KeyStore type or Help window displaying under the main window on Mac OS X and other usability issues.

More details regarding all the features and fixes made in CERTivity 2.0 are available online in CERTivity Release Notes, and available for download in CERTivity Release Notes PDF Document.

As usual, for the new CERTivity 2.0 version we offer a Free 30 Day Trial period to fully evaluate the new and improved CERTivity. You can request a Trial License Key by simply filling in the trial form, even if you already tried older CERTivity versions.

For any questions regarding the new version or for any suggestion and comments feel free to contact us.

EduLib, a privately held software development company from Craiova, Romania announces the release of the latest version of CERTivity KeyStores Manager – CERTivity 1.2, an improved version that provides new useful features, updates and bug fixes.

“CERTivity 1.2 is an incredibly enhanced version of our KeyStores Manager tool and it takes us one step closer to achieving our goal to offer to users complete solutions in the Public Key Infrastructure domain as well, making Cryptographic Keys Management and Digital Signing more accessible and more user friendly than ever through its easy to use and intuitive graphic interface”, said Mihai Popa, CEO at EduLib.

CERTivity 1.2 features detailed viewing of Certificate Signing Request (CSR) files and Certificate Revocation Lists (CRL) either local or remote, being able to open CRLs not only from local files but also from other locations accessing them through various protocols like HTTP, HTTPS, FTP and even LDAP. Obtaining the CRLs is facilitated even more by adding the possibility to view the associated revocation lists for a given certificate by a simple click of a button, allowing the user to find revocation information much faster. It also adds new signature algorithms for Key Pair/CSR generation and for CSR signing, new Key Algorithms for Secret Key generation and more Fingerprints in the Certificates Details.

With the newest version of CERTivity the users have support for file type inspection which seems to become a more and more useful feature given the various types of Cryptographic file types which have various file extensions names not all of them recognized by operating systems. Also, CERTivity 1.2 provides improved certificates management in certificate chains, offering more flexibility allowing to add or remove the signer certificate from a chain.

Like the previous versions of CERTivity, the latest version is built on top of the NetBeans platform, but using a newer version of NetBeans RPC, namely the RELEASE721. Although it is not a major version, CERTivity 1.2 provides many new features and improvements which aim to reduce and simplify the work of the user.

“CERTivity 1.2 nearly doubles the number of features added in the previous version of CERTivity.”, said David Dascalescu, CTO at EduLib. “In this new version of our Java solution we have concentrated on adding new features to improve both usability and the general overall experience to help development in the Enterprise domain by making more user-friendly the management of the SSL related infrastructure and operations”.

Certificate trust establishment is another domain covered and made easier by this version of CERTivity. When importing a new certificate or a CA Reply, the application tries to establish the trust path using the trusted certificates from a series of TrustStores which can be selected by the user, having the possibility to either select from the JRE TrustStores (which are discovered automatically), or from the Windows Native TrustStores, or from custom TrustStores which can be provided via new options in the Options panel, together with several options for trust path validation.

To facilitate even more the user’s work CERTivity 1.2 has added many other features like simplifying the operation for signing a certificate and act as a test or in-house CA only with two clicks. Also, the selection of the country code contained in a Distinguished Name was standardized and new shortcuts for the System/Popup action and for the contextual menu have been added. More than this, drag and drop functionality for Certificates, CRLs, CSRs and KeyStores is now available, easing a lot the opening of these files. Besides all these, a Quick Search is now triggered by the keyboard input in the KeyStore panel allowing selective column search.

The new released version of the software tool has fixed issues found in the previous version, such as focus lost on File Chooser for unlocked Key Pairs/Private Keys on Linux. Also some corrections and uniformity were performed for some labels contained in the GUI.

“For CERTivity, as well as we do for all of our products regardless of the domain to which they refer to – from system administration or software development to Education and Library Information Discovery - the needs of the users come first and we will continue to put our efforts and creativity to work for providing new tools and enriching them with new features which will ease the work of our current and future customers”, said Mihai Popa, CEO at EduLib.

As done for the previous versions, for CERTivity 1.2 EduLib offers a trial period of 30 days to fully evaluate the new features of the new version even for users which have tried the previous versions.

The new features and updates offered by CERTivity 1.2 are available from EduLib at https://www.edulib.com/tools/keystores-manager/.

This press release was distributed on behalf of our company listed above, through: PR.com, PR-inside, Online PR Media, PRLOG, Newswire Today, i-Newswire, Free Press Release.

EduLib is pleased to announce the release of CERTivity KeyStores Manager 1.2, that is available for download, starting today, the 9th of May 2013. The version 1.2 of CERTivity KeyStores Manager brings very interesting features and improvements, as well as bug fixes.

Just like in the past, for the new CERTivity 1.2 version we offer a Free 30 Day Trial period to fully evaluate the new and improved CERTivity. You can request a Trial License Key by simply filling in the trial form, even if you already tried older CERTivity versions. If you have a commercial 1.x license key this will work seamlessly for CERTivity 1.2.

On short CERTivity 1.2 features viewing CRL and CSR files, new signature algorithms for Key Pair/CSR generation and for CSR signing, new Key Algorithms for Secret Key generation, support for file type inspection, more Fingerprints available in the Certificates Details sections, an improved certificates management in certificate chains, trust path validation and management via new options in the Options panel.

As in the previous versions of CERTivity, we have added many features that simplify the work such as the possibility to sign a certificate and act as a test or in-house CA, in just one or two steps, we standardized the country code contained in a DN, we added drag and drop for all of the supported file types, we added new shortcuts for the System/Popup action and for the contextual menu and we now have a Quick Search triggered by the keyboard input in the KeyStore panel allowing selective column search.

In this version of CERTivity we have bug fixes, such as for focus lost on File Chooser for unlocked Key Pairs/Private Keys on Linux, for the "SSL Certificates Retriever" option availability, comparison of issuer DN and subject DN of the certificates in the certificate chain issue, for importing PEM certificate chains files issue and a fix for a revocation status check issue. We also fixed an issue that occurred sometimes when certificates were wrongly labeled as Self Signed, we made sure the date used in the "Extend Certificate Validity" action is valid and we avoid opening the same certificate multiple times in different tabs. By switching to a newer version of NetBeans RPC, RELEASE721, the sporadic NullPointerException issue disappeared.

A lot more information regarding the above mentioned features and fixes, as well as other changes and additions made in CERTivity 1.2 are detailed online in CERTivity Release Notes, and available for download in CERTivity Release Notes PDF Document.

After an internal evaluation of the new version of CERTivity, we came to the conclusion that at the moment, there isn't any other tool supporting all these features. Because our goal is to make CERTivity the most complete and usable tool of its kind, we will gladly answer any questions regarding the new version. Also for any suggestion or observation feel free to contact us.

In about a half year since the first release of CERTivity KeyStores Manager, EduLib, the privately held software development company located in Craiova, Romania, announces the availability of CERTivity KeyStores Manager 1.1, a new improved version of its first software tool. The latest release of EduLib provides new important features, updates and bug fixes.

“CERTivity 1.1 is an improved version of CERTivity 1.0, and was developed having as main purpose to increase the usability and allow the users to have an even more pleasant experience working with items from Digital Signing, Cryptographic Keys Management and Public Key Infrastructure domains”, said Mihai Popa, CEO at EduLib.

Version 1.1 is built, just like CERTivity 1.0, on top of the NetBeans platform, using the advantages that it provides, and it was created paying attention to details. Although it is not a major version, CERTivity 1.1 brings new useful features which are intended to and may come in handy when dealing with digitally signing and creation of secure Key Pairs and certificates.

As the need of digitally signing files of different kind increases, and as the development of the Android applications becomes more and more popular, the need of digitally signing Android Application Package files also arises. Therefore the new version of the software tool released by EduLib introduces support for signing and verifying signatures on APK files, making CERTivity compatible with other tools than the JDK’s, such as the Android SDK tools. Also, as an improvement of the verification mechanism, version 1.1 allows importing certificates into the active KeyStore directly from the signature verification result dialogs for the Verify JAR/APK, PDF and XML actions.

CERTivity anticipates the transition to secure RSA keys, as Microsoft announces that the use of the RSA keys that are less than 1024 bits long will be blocked.

“Microsoft announced that the use of certificates having RSA keys that are less than 1024 bits long will be blocked. Java Virtual Machine may do this as well in the future. Therefore we have added in CERTivity 1.1 a few features to anticipate and to offer support for the imminent transition to secure RSA keys, so that the users of CERTivity will be prepared when the time will come”, said David Dascalescu, CTO at EduLib. These features include the possibility to set the minimum key size allowed for generating RSA Key Pairs and display warnings when generating key pairs having the size less than the minimum value set. Also, the RSA keys which are less than the minimum value accepted will be marked in the KeyStore tree table view in different color to be easily spotted.

CERTivity 1.1 adds other features as well compared to the previous version, such as certificate extensions management, allowing basic display of certificate extensions, creating and adding extensions to a certificate when generating a new Key Pair or a CAReply (which results after signing a Certificate Signing Request – CSR file) and viewing the extensions structure as XML at creation time. The extensions structure, at creation time, is displayed as a tree like structure, allowing also saving the extensions as templates in XML documents or loading them from a template file when creating a new Key Pair.

Also this release of CERTivity allows discovering and opening the Java(s) Certificate Authority TrustStore(s) of the current system either Windows, Mac OS X or Linux/Unix.

“On many systems there can be more Java Virtual Machines installed, especially if the system contains both 32 and 64 bit java versions installed. So, because of this, we are not only searching for the Truststore of the main Java Virtual Machine, and we are searching for others as well, from other Java Virtual Machines existing on the current system. Therefore, for his convenience, the user has easier access to more CA Truststores from his system” said David Dascalescu, CTO at EduLib.

For the user’s convenience CERTivity 1.1 has added some other features which can ease the work such as the possibility to generate a new Key Pair using some of the information from an existing one, the possibility to retrieve SSL certificates by using (pasting) a HTTPS URL instead of specifying separately the host and port number (option which is still available) or renaming entries by pressing the F2 key (like in Windows Explorer).

Also, apart from the new features which have been added, the new released version of the software tool has fixed the issues found in the previous version, such as focus lost and entry selection issues. Also some corrections and uniformity have been performed for the File Choosers.

“We pay attention to details, so we have fixed the small graphic user interface issues and irregularities from the previous version, so that the user’s experience is as smooth as it can be when working with our product”, said Mihai Popa, CEO at EduLib.

Just like for the previous version of CERTivity, for CERTivity 1.1 EduLib offers a trial period of 30 days to fully evaluate the new features of the new version even for users which have tried the previous version. “We believe that everybody should have the right to evaluate the improvements we have done for CERTivity before deciding to continue to use our products or become a user” said Mihai Popa, the CEO at EduLib.

The new features and updates offered by CERTivity 1.1 are available from EduLib at https://www.edulib.com/tools/keystores-manager/.

This press release was distributed on behalf of our company listed above, through: PR-inside.com, PRLOG, Newswire Today,i-Newswire.

We are proud to announce that starting today, the 18th of October 2012, the latest version of CERTivity KeyStores Manager - CERTivity 1.1 is available for download. Although the version 1.1 is not a major release, it provides new important features, improvements and bug fixes.

Just like for the previous version of CERTivity, for CERTivity 1.1 we offer a Free 30 Day Trial period to fully evaluate the benefits of the new features. You can request a Trial License Key by simply filling in the trial form, even if you already tried CERTivity 1.0.

On short CERTivity 1.1 features the opening of the Java Virtual Machines CA Truststores discovered on the current system, Certificate Extensions management (basic display of the extensions, creating and adding extensions to a certificate when generating a new KeyPair or a CA Reply file (when signing a CSR), viewing the extensions structure as XML at creation time, saving and loading the extensions structure templates as XML documents), capability to sign and verify signatures on “APK” (Android Application Package) files, importing certificates into the active KeyStore directly from the signature verification result dialogs for the Verify JAR / APK, PDF and XML actions, or reopening of the last used files (KeyStores and Certificates).

As previously announced, CERTivity 1.1 supports transition to secure RSA keys, as Microsoft announces that the use of certificates that have RSA keys that are less than 1024 bits long will be blocked. These features include the possibility to set the minimum key size allowed for generating RSA Key Pairs and display warnings when generating key pairs having the size less than the minimum value set. Also, the RSA keys which are less than the minimum value accepted will be marked in the KeyStore tree table view in different color to be easily spotted.

For usability we have added features which simplifies the work such as the possibility to generate a new Key Pair using some of the information from an existing one (acting as a template), the possibility to retrieve SSL certificates by using (pasting) a HTTPS URL instead of specifying separately the host and port number (option which is still available) or renaming entries by pressing the F2 key (like in Windows Explorer).

In this version of CERTivity we have also fixed some issues from version 1.0, such as the focus lost and entry selection issues and we have also performed some corrections and uniformity for the File Choosers. Also, we have made some updates to the JAR signing mechanism, so that now CERTivity is compatible with other tools than JDK’s, such as the Android SDK tools.

More details regarding the above mentioned features and fixes, as well as other changes and additions made in CERTivity 1.1 are detailed online in CERTivity Release Notes, and available for download in CERTivity Release Notes PDF Document.

Overall, the new version of CERTivity improves usability, pays attention to details and provides important features which allow you to have an even more pleasant experience working with Cryptographic Keys Management, Public Key Infrastructure and Digital Signing.

For any questions regarding the new version or for any suggestion or observation feel free to contact us.

As Microsoft announces that the use of certificates that have RSA keys that are less than 1024 bits long will be blocked, and in the future other systems and even Java Virtual Machine may do this as well, we are introducing in the soon to be launched minor version 1.1 of CERTivity KeyStores Manager features to easily spot such certificates, and to warn when generating RSA Key Pairs with less than 1024 bits actually a minimum configurable size greater or equal to 1024. Another measure will be that the default out of the box RSA KeyPair size will be doubled to 2048, too. This value can, at any moment, be increased by users and it will remain persistent for future uses.

Softpedia guarantees that CERTivity 1.0 Build 6 is 100% Clean, which means it does not contain any form of malware, including but not limited to: spyware, viruses, trojans and backdoors.

This software product was tested thoroughly and was found absolutely clean; therefore, it can be installed with no concern by any computer user.

CERTivity 1.0 Build 6 was tested in the Softpedia Labs on 27th of March 2012 by Mihaela Citea.

More information about CERTivity 1.0 Build 6's certification and the award is available on this page: http://www.softpedia.com/progClean/CERTivity-Clean-211466.html.

The EduLib team announces that, as an alternative download location, CERTivity® KeyStores Manager is available on the following software download sites: Brothersoft, Softpedia, CNET, Soft32, 2000Shareware, Windows 7 Download, Top 4 Download, Softonic.

You can use any of these sites to download CERTivity. After that, be sure to get your Free 30 Day Trial from edu.Library in order to be able to fully evaluate CERTivity.

Find out more about CERTivity here.

EduLib, a privately held software development company located in Craiova, Romania, with a solid software expertise of more than 10 years, announces the availability of CERTivity, a new software tool which is a powerful pure Java multi-platform environment for creating, managing and using cryptographic keys (private, public or secret keys), KeyStores for storing the keys and key pairs, digital certificates intensively used by SSL, and, last but not least, creating and verifying digital signatures on digital files and documents. With this launch, EduLib intends to offer to the cryptographic software world, developers and system administrators, a comprehensive package of solutions for managing and handling cryptographic information, and also enter the Public Key Infrastructure domain.

CERTivity provides for creation and usage of many KeyStore types such as the well known JKS, JCEKS, PKCS#12, or the Bouncy Castle KeyStore types BKS and UBER. Also, it covers up many algorithms which can be used for creating the private and secret keys which can be stored within these KeyStores.

As the usage of electronic services such as virtual mails, electronic banking or electronic commerce becomes more commonplace in the present, there are also increasing concerns regarding the privacy and security of the transactions. These concerns along with the needs to avoid the risk of being impersonated over the internet bring up the need of using encryption for personal data, digital certificates for establishing authenticity and digital signatures combining encryption and digital certificates as safety precautions for being able to take full advantage of the new electronic medium for personal business.

"CERTivity was built with these aspects in mind, to offer the possibility to create, manage and use digital certificates especially for SSL and HTTPS, extend validity of the self-signed certificates, obtain revocation information and even test them using custom communication protocols, as well as creating and handling encrypted key pairs and secret keys using various encryption algorithms", said David Dascalescu, the CTO at EduLib.

This new tool covers and combines many functions which can be found in various command line tools or other operating system tools, but, it does not intend to be just a simple replacer for all of these. As the features are combined and centralized having an intuitive and productive organization, CERTivity is offering to developers and system administrators, and to all users in general the possibility to spend less time taking care of low level details and concentrate on important stuff, therefore offering the possibility to maximize productivity.

CERTivity also offers the possibility to sign well known file types such as PDF and XML documents, or JAR files. Also, in addition to signing, CERTivity offers the possibility to verify signatures on documents already signed.

"When designing CERTivity, we have also taken in consideration the increase in usage of digital documents thus offering solutions for ensuring the authenticity of documents and ensuring that the contents of the digital files remain unchanged for a series of document and file types very widely used in present, such as PDF or XML documents, or JAR files", said David Dascalescu.

Signing and verifying files

CERTivity can digitally sign, by public/private-key encrypted byte range digest, PDF documents supporting the standard SubFilter values "adbe.x509.rsa_sha1", "adbe.pkcs7.detached" and "adbe.pkcs7.sha1". The Portable Document Format (PDF) allows digitally signing a document by inserting a cryptographic signature value in the file. A signature is in most cases represented by a signature field containing the name and other attributes of the signer. The signature supported by CERTivity is of document (or ordinary) type, according to the PDF reference, version 1.7. In addition to signing, EduLib's tool offers possibility for verifying signed PDF documents as well. It provides means for verifying the validity of the signatures, preventing documents from being subject to tampering and also it can display valuable information about the signer, information similar to the one Adobe PDF Reader offers when opening a signed PDF. More than this, the verification process offers a lot of details which can be of interest to developers or analysts.

CERTivity can also perform signing and verifying on XML documents. Signatures on XML documents can be used as authentication credentials or as a way to check data integrity. XML signatures can be applied to XML files, HTML pages, binary-encoded data and any XML-encoded data. More than this, CERTivity can verify XML signatures using either the certificates embedded in the signature, or using a specific certificate given by the user.

"Also, for developers, CERTivity brings up the ability to sign and verify JAR files, which is basically useful when having to be sure of the integrity of Java archives, and to protect against changes intended to be harmful", said David Dascalescu. "The process of signing or verifying is made much easier by the graphical interface, which makes it a more pleasant experience than using equivalent command line tools".

Besides the file and document signing and verifying features, the tool released by the EduLib team contains other functionalities which can be of interest to any developer, network administrator, analyst, or just everyone who has intersected with the X.509-based Public Key Infrastructure.

The solutions offered by CERTivity are available from EduLib at https://www.edulib.com/tools/keystores-manager/.

This press release was distributed on behalf of our company listed above, through: PR.com, Online PR Media, 24-7 Press Release, PR-inside.com, PRLOG, i-Newswire, Newswire Today.