CA/Browser Forum
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Application for Membership

For CAs and Browsers Interested in Joining the CA / Browser Forum:

Browser manufacturers or developers of software that includes trusted root certificates may wish to consider joining the CA/Browser Forum.  Our Bylaws require that your organization “…produces a software product intended for use by the general public for browsing the Web securely.”

Our bylaws provide that CA members shall meet at least one of the following criteria:

  • Issuing CA:- The member organization operates a certification authority that has a current and successful WebTrust for CAs audit, or ETSI 102042 or ETSI 101456 audit report prepared by a properly-qualified auditor, and that actively issues certificates to Web servers that are openly accessible from the Internet using any one of the mainstream browsers.
  • Root CA:- The member organization operates a certification authority that has a current and successful WebTrust for CAs, or ETSI 102042 or ETSI 101456 audit report prepared by a properly-qualified auditor, and that actively issues certificates to subordinate CAs that, in turn, actively issue certificates to Web servers that are openly accessible from the Internet using any one of the mainstream browsers.

Click this Membership Application section of our “Information for Potential Members” page.

Membership
Latest releases
Server Certificate Requirements
BRs/2.1.2 SC-080 V3: Sunset the use of WHOIS to identify Domain Contacts and relying DCV Methods - Dec 16, 2024

Ballot SC-080 V3: “Sunset the use of WHOIS to identify Domain Contact… (https://github.com/cabforum/servercert/pull/560) Ballot SC-080 V3: “Sunset the use of WHOIS to identify Domain Contacts and relying DCV Methods” (https://github.com/cabforum/servercert/pull/555)

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
v1.0.8 - Ballot SMC010 - Dec 23, 2024

This ballot adopts Multi-Perspective Issuance Corroboration (MPIC) for CAs when conducting Email Domain Control Validation (DCV) and Certification Authority Authorization (CAA) checks for S/MIME Certificates. The Ballot adopts the MPIC implementation consistent with the TLS Baseline Requirements. Acknowledging that some S/MIME CAs with no TLS operations may require additional time to deploy MPIC, the Ballot has a Compliance Date of May 15, 2025. Following that date the implementation timeline described in TLS BR section 3.2.2.9 applies. This ballot is proposed by Stephen Davidson (DigiCert) and endorsed by Ashish Dhiman (GlobalSign) and Nicolas Lidzborski (Google).

Network and Certificate System Security Requirements
v2.0 - Ballot NS-003 - Jun 26, 2024

Ballot NS-003: Restructure the NCSSRs in https://github.com/cabforum/netsec/pull/35

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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).