New Improved Version Of Multi-Platform Software Solution CERTivity KeyStores Manager Released By EduLib

EduLib releases CERTivity 1.1, an improved version having new functionality for signing APK files, managing certificate extensions, discovering Java TrustStores and other features, increasing usability working with cryptographic keys and PKI domain.

Craiova (I-Newswire) October 24, 2012 - In about a half year since the first release of CERTivity KeyStores Manager, EduLib, the privately held software development company located in Craiova, Romania, announces the availability of CERTivity KeyStores Manager 1.1, a new improved version of its first software tool. The latest release of EduLib provides new important features, updates and bug fixes.

“CERTivity 1.1 is an improved version of CERTivity 1.0, and was developed having as main purpose to increase the usability and allow the users to have an even more pleasant experience working with items from Digital Signing, Cryptographic Keys Management and Public Key Infrastructure domains”, said Mihai Popa, CEO at EduLib.

Version 1.1 is built, just like CERTivity 1.0, on top of the NetBeans platform, using the advantages that it provides, and it was created paying attention to details. Although it is not a major version, CERTivity 1.1 brings new useful features which are intended to and may come in handy when dealing with digitally signing and creation of secure Key Pairs and certificates.

As the need of digitally signing files of different kind increases, and as the development of the Android applications becomes more and more popular, the need of digitally signing Android Application Package files also arises. Therefore the new version of the software tool released by EduLib introduces support for signing and verifying signatures on APK files, making CERTivity compatible with other tools than the JDK’s, such as the Android SDK tools. Also, as an improvement of the verification mechanism, version 1.1 allows importing certificates into the active KeyStore directly from the signature verification result dialogs for the Verify JAR/APK, PDF and XML actions.

CERTivity anticipates the transition to secure RSA keys, as Microsoft announces that the use of the RSA keys that are less than 1024 bits long will be blocked.

“Microsoft announced that the use of certificates having RSA keys that are less than 1024 bits long will be blocked. Java Virtual Machine may do this as well in the future. Therefore we have added in CERTivity 1.1 a few features to anticipate and to offer support for the imminent transition to secure RSA keys, so that the users of CERTivity will be prepared when the time will come”, said David Dascalescu, CTO at EduLib. These features include the possibility to set the minimum key size allowed for generating RSA Key Pairs and display warnings when generating key pairs having the size less than the minimum value set. Also, the RSA keys which are less than the minimum value accepted will be marked in the KeyStore tree table view in different color to be easily spotted.

CERTivity 1.1 adds other features as well compared to the previous version, such as certificate extensions management, allowing basic display of certificate extensions, creating and adding extensions to a certificate when generating a new Key Pair or a CAReply (which results after signing a Certificate Signing Request – CSR file) and viewing the extensions structure as XML at creation time. The extensions structure, at creation time, is displayed as a tree like structure, allowing also saving the extensions as templates in XML documents or loading them from a template file when creating a new Key Pair.

Also this release of CERTivity allows discovering and opening the Java(s) Certificate Authority TrustStore(s) of the current system either Windows, Mac OS X or Linux/Unix.

“On many systems there can be more Java Virtual Machines installed, especially if the system contains both 32 and 64 bit java versions installed. So, because of this, we are not only searching for the Truststore of the main Java Virtual Machine, and we are searching for others as well, from other Java Virtual Machines existing on the current system. Therefore, for his convenience, the user has easier access to more CA Truststores from his system” said David Dascalescu, CTO at EduLib.

For the user’s convenience CERTivity 1.1 has added some other features which can ease the work such as the possibility to generate a new Key Pair using some of the information from an existing one, the possibility to retrieve SSL certificates by using (pasting) a HTTPS URL instead of specifying separately the host and port number (option which is still available) or renaming entries by pressing the F2 key (like in Windows Explorer).

Also, apart from the new features which have been added, the new released version of the software tool has fixed the issues found in the previous version, such as focus lost and entry selection issues. Also some corrections and uniformity have been performed for the File Choosers.

“We pay attention to details, so we have fixed the small graphic user interface issues and irregularities from the previous version, so that the user’s experience is as smooth as it can be when working with our product”, said Mihai Popa, CEO at EduLib.

Just like for the previous version of CERTivity, for CERTivity 1.1 EduLib offers a trial period of 30 days to fully evaluate the new features of the new version even for users which have tried the previous version. “We believe that everybody should have the right to evaluate the improvements we have done for CERTivity before deciding to continue to use our products or become a user” said Mihai Popa, the CEO at EduLib.

The new features and updates offered by CERTivity 1.1 are available from EduLib at http://www.edulib.com/products/keystores-manager/.