Member Avatar for kateloe

When I try to view a secure page, the browser complains that it doesn't recognize the authority that signed its certificate and asks me if I want to continue. Should I?

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That warning means the browser cannot verify the site’s identity through a trusted certificate chain. For any site where you sign in or pay, the safe choice is to stop and do not enter data. Both Chrome and Firefox treat this as a high‑risk condition and recommend against bypassing it. See Chrome’s guidance on “Your connection is not private” and Firefox’s “Secure connection failed” explanation for what the errors mean and why proceeding is unsafe (, Mozilla Support).

Building on ’s point about trust: verify before you trust. Quick checks you can do:

  • Click the lock/warning, open the certificate, and confirm the hostname you typed matches the certificate’s Subject or SAN (Subject Alternative Name).
  • Look at the Issuer. If it is not a well‑known public CA, you may be seeing a self‑signed cert or corporate TLS interception. Only proceed if you explicitly installed and trust that issuer.
  • If the browser mentions “unknown issuer” or a missing chain, treat it as untrusted. This can also happen on public Wi‑Fi where someone is attempting a man‑in‑the‑middle attack.
  • Make sure your device date/time is correct; clock skew can break certificate validation.

called out one common admin mistake. Other frequent causes are a mismatched hostname, a self‑signed certificate, missing intermediate certificates, or a network security product replacing certificates.

If this is your site (or an internal tool), fix the cause rather than asking users to click through:

  • Use a publicly trusted CA and serve the full chain.
  • Ensure the certificate’s SANs include every hostname users will visit (e.g., www and apex).
  • For internal/dev, use your org’s PKI and deploy the root/intermediate to all client devices.
  • Follow hardening guidance in OWASP’s Transport Layer Protection Cheat Sheet (OWASP).

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Member Avatar for peter_budo

Question is - do you trust that website or not? Answer that question and you get answer to your question.

Member Avatar for MidiMagic

Usually this means that the page owner has neglected to update the certificate and it expired.

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