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NWA1000 Series User’s Guide
212
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PPENDIX
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Importing Certificates
This appendix shows you how to import public key certificates into your web browser.
Public key certificates are used by web browsers to ensure that a secure web site is legitimate. When a
certificate authority such as VeriSign, Comodo, or Network Solutions, to name a few, receives a
certificate request from a website operator, they confirm that the web domain and contact information
in the request match those on public record with a domain name registrar. If they match, then the
certificate is issued to the website operator, who then places it on the site to be issued to all visiting web
browsers to let them know that the site is legitimate.
Many Zyxel products, such as the NWA1000 Series, issue their own public key certificates. These can be
used by web browsers on a LAN or WAN to verify that they are in fact connecting to the legitimate
device and not one masquerading as it. However, because the certificates were not issued by one of
the several organizations officially recognized by the most common web browsers, you will need to
import the Zyxel-created certificate into your web browser and flag that certificate as a trusted
authority.
Note: You can see if you are browsing on a secure website if the URL in your web browser’s
address bar begins with
https://
or there is a sealed padlock icon (
) somewhere
in the main browser window (not all browsers show the padlock in the same location).
Google Chrome
The following example uses Google Chrome on Windows 7. You first have to store the certificate in your
computer and then install it as a Trusted Root CA, as shown in the following tutorials.