Date Last Reviewed:
09/27/2007
A security certificate acts as the key used to decrypt encrypted messages by an authenticated message receiver. NIU uses the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) for transmitting and accepting secure information (such as passwords) or for encrypting entire sessions that are expected to contain private or confidential information. SSL is a standard method for protecting web communications by providing message encryption, server authentication, message integrity and client authentication for a TCP/IP connection.
NIU Information Technology Services provides 128-bit encryption of information on a secure socket layer. This advanced security measure helps to protect personal information from being exploited.
By accepting the NIU certificate you will be adding NIU to the list of trusted certificating authorities your computer acknowledges and approves.
There are currently two NIU Security certificates being used by different web-based applications. Users are advised to install them both. This will prevent warning messages from being displayed as NIU web-based applications requiring authentication are accessed. Since (in general) browsers do not share data, users may need to install the certificates into each browser application that is being used on their computer. For example, a certificate installed into Internet Explorer will not work for Mozilla Composer and vice-versa. Mozilla Communicator and Netscape share data, so it is not necessary to install the certificates for both products on the same computer.