ZyXEL Communications Corporation WAC6553D-E User Manual

NWA5000 / WAC6500 Series User’s Guide

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 NWA/WAC, 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).

The following example uses Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 on Windows XP Professional; however, 
they can also apply to Internet Explorer on Windows Vista.