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WebTrust Releases New Audit Criteria for Extended Validation and Baseline Requirements

On April 3, 2014, the WebTrust® Task Force of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and Chartered Professional Accountants Canada (CPA Canada) released three new audit criteria documents to the CA/Browser Forum and others for review and/or implementation. These documents are part of the WebTrust Program for Certification Authorities and are based on the CA/Browser Forum Guidelines.

The Trust Services Principles and Criteria for Certification Authorities – Extended Validation SSL – Version 1.4.5 is based on the Forum’s Guidelines for the Issuance and Management of Extended Validation SSL Certificates – Version 1.4.5 and is effective immediately (3 April 2014).

Trust Services Principles and Criteria for Certification Authorities – SSL Baseline with Network Security – Version 2.0 is based on the Forum’s Baseline Requirements for the Issuance and Management of Publicly-Trusted Certificates – Version 1.1.6 and its Network and Certificate Systems Security Requirements – Version 1.0. The exposure draft released today has a proposed effective date of 1 July 2014 (applicable to audit periods starting on or after 1 July 2014).

The Trust Services Principles and Criteria for Certification Authorities – Extended Validation Code Signing is based on the Forum’s Guidelines for the Issuance and Management of Extended Validation Code Signing Certificates – Version 1.1. The exposure draft released today has a proposed effective date of 1 July 2014 (applicable to audit periods starting on or after 1 July 2014).

All three of these documents are available in PDF, DOC and DOCX format at .

Latest releases
Server Certificate Requirements
SC098: Process RFC 8657 CAA Parameters - Jun 16, 2026

Code Signing Requirements
v3.8 - Aug 5, 2024

What’s Changed CSC-25: Import EV Guidelines to CS Baseline Requirements by @dzacharo in https://github.com/cabforum/code-signing/pull/38 Full Changelog: https://github.com/cabforum/code-signing/compare/v3.7...v3.8

S/MIME Requirements
v1.0.15 - Ballot SMC017v2 - Jul 30, 2026

This ballot increases the minimum RSA key size for Root and Subordinate CA certificates in the S/MIME BRs from 2048 to 4096 bits for keys created after September 15, 2026, while retaining the 2048-bit minimum for Subscriber certificates. The ballot further requires that by September 15, 2027, CAs SHALL NOT issue Subscriber certificates from any Sub-CA whose RSA key modulus is less than 3072 bits, effectively sunsetting issuance from legacy 2048-bit Sub-CAs. The ballot also includes minor typographic corrections. This ballot is proposed by Martijn Katerbarg (Sectigo) and endorsed by Ben Wilson (Mozilla) and Stephen Davidson (DigiCert)

Network and Certificate System Security Requirements
Version 2.0.5 (Ballot NS-008) - Jul 9, 2025

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The Certification Authority Browser Forum (CA/Browser Forum) is a voluntary gathering of Certificate Issuers and suppliers of Internet browser software and other applications that use certificates (Certificate Consumers).