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Codebreaker

Ever heard of KPN?

John Moe Nov 8, 2011

No? Your computer probably has. Until yesterday, the Dutch firm was on a relatively short list of companies that issue SSL certificates. Certificates are the Internet tools that tell your computer whether the website you’re visiting is secure or not. The company announced that it will “cease issuing operations” after discovering a break in. It was just about a month ago that another Dutch certificate firm, Diginotar, went completely out of business because of a similar incident. In fact, after Diginotar shut its doors, some of the sites that were doing business with it switched to KPN. ZDNet reports that the break in to KPN could have happened “as far back as four years ago.”

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