Many smartphones deprived of the Internet from September 30? This is the alarming news that was relayed by several media, including 20 minutes, based on a note published by a UK cybersecurity expert. September 20, Scott Helme
warned that a security certificate would expire on September 30, potentially affecting older versions of Windows, macOs, Android and iOS *, released before 2016, and preventing their users from smoothly browsing the Internet.
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This certificate, known under the nickname IdenTrust DST Rooot CA X3, is part of the IT chain that verifies that a connection to a site or application is secure. The risk, with the expiration of this certificate, is that your browser considers that your connection is not secure.
Does this mean that all those older smartphones will no longer be able to browse securely from Thursday? No. Let’s Encrypt, the entity behind this certificate, established a new feature that allows safe browsing for another three years on Android phones running a version prior to 7.1.1. Only smartphones aged nine and over, representing 0.2% of Android in circulation, do not benefit from it,
noteThe world.
For other Internet users, it is possible to bypass the expiration of this certificate by using the Firefox browser, “which has its own certificate system”, points out to 20 minutes Corinne Hennin, cybersecurity expert.
The risk, for these users, is however to end up with “obsolete equipment”, points Loïc Guézo, general secretary of Clusif, an association dealing with digital security. Businesses may find themselves in difficulty if they still have computers running older versions of Windows XP SP3. This material “can be found in factories, on automatons”, adds the specialist, noting a risk of “bugs”. This hardware may also experience other vulnerabilities, Microsoft no longer performing system updates to Windows XP since 2014.
*The affected versions are versions of Windows prior to XP SP3, those of macOS prior to 10.12.1, of iOS prior to version 10, of Android to 7.1.1.