Everyone: “There is a problem with this website’s security certificate”

From time to time in Internet Explorer 7, you may see this warning pop up on a blue window when you click on a link:

There is a problem with this website’s security certificate. The security certificate presented by this website was not issued by a trusted certificate authority.Security certificate problems may indicate an attempt to fool you or intercept data you send to the server.
We recommend that you close this webpage and do not continue to this Web site.You might see something similar in Internet Explorer 6, although not quite as scary-sounding.

First, don’t panic.  This sometimes appears even on Microsoft’s own website.  It’s supposed to be a protection measure, but it doesn’t work as well as it was intended to in normal use.

If you’re using part of the University’s web site, the Library web site, or the Library article databases — any links from our campus web sites (meaning with “uafortsmith.edu” somewhere in the URL address location box at the top of your browser window) — GO AHEAD AND GO THROUGH TO THE WEBSITE ANYWAY.

Explanation: web sites are supposed to pay for a “security certificate”, and pay to update it regularly, to show they are legitimate and safe.  However, sometimes they don’t do it soon enough, or something else is out of sync, and your browser (usually, Internet Explorer) gets worried.

If this were just any web site out there, you should be cautious, but the campus web sites and the ones linked by the Library are considered safe, with or without a security certificate.

If you’d like to avoid these warnings, you could switch to another browser such as Firefox, or you could follow Microsoft’s official advice every time this happens for a campus-related site:

WORKAROUND

To work around this issue, install the Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 (Windows SBS) self-signed certificate on the client computer. To do this, follow these steps:

1. In Windows Internet Explorer 7, click Continue to this website (not recommended).
   A red Address Bar and a certificate warning appear.
2. Click the Certificate Error button to open the information window.
3. Click View Certificates, and then click Install Certificate.
4. On the warning message that appears, click Yes to install the certificate.

This should only be done when coming directly from a campus site (with “uafortsmith.edu” somewhere in the URL address box at the top of your browser screen).  For any other sites, you should still be a little cautious.