A-SIT Secure Information Technology Center – Austria

EU Trusted Lists of Certification Service Providers

The Certificate Status Tool also supports validating certificates against the Trusted Lists of Certification Service Providers (TSL) issued by the European Commission (see Certificate Details and Status).
In order to provide insights about the state and structure of the EU TSL, the Certificate Status Tool features an interactive visualisation of the tree based on the EU toplevel TSL.

1. Country
2. Service provider
3. Service
4. Certificate

The algorithm determining the validity of individual nodes is described as part of the certificate details and status topic. Nodes of the TSL tree can be collapsed and expanded as desired. Additionally, nodes representing certificates can be double-clicked to inspect the underlying certificate's details. These details are shown in a separate window, which also enables saving the certificate to a file.

The TSL information is updated on every launch of the Certificate Status Tool. However, TSL-based validations are performed on (potentially out-of-date) information cached from the previous run, until the update has been completed. Depending on bandwidth and processing power such an update can take a few minutes. Furthermore, updates are not designed to be cancellable. Therefore, updates are always completed, which may delay exiting the Certificate Status Tool. This approach guarantees accurate and consistent information.