MSWord & Verisign?

[Namie]

Well I have Sygate Firewall and when I open Office XP, the firewall tells me it's trying to connect to crl.verisign.com - why does it have to do that? It takes awhile to open because of it... Should I let Sygate allow it? Just wondering what it is for.

[Jeordiewhite]

What exactly in office xp are you opening? Anything with a link to a verisign link on it?
I hate spyware as well, microsoft happens to be the only one I have yet to remove, I don't let anything of microsofts out. I don't use IE unless I have to.

The requested domain is for the VeriSign Certificate Revocation List.

It may not actually be Office itself that is sending the request. It is is most likely a macro or activex control attempting to verify its certificate status.

crl.verisign.com is a trusted domain, so there should be no problem. You can use a monitoring utility like TCPView to pinpoint the actual exectuble trying to gain access to the Verisign site.

TCPView: http://www.sysinternals.com/

Robert Richmond

[Namie]

It's definitely coming from Office (Word). Sygate and that TCPView just tells me it's going to 198.49.161.206 which is crl.verisign.com - Just wondering, If I were to not allow or terminate connection from there or just not connected to the net, would the program still fully function? Oh and in TCPView it says it's in LISTENING State. This is just a guess but it's supose to certify something with your documents or something? It better not be reading my essays, lol...

It is not going to snoop on your writings. An exploit would have little reason to connect to a Verisign site.

As to blocking, it depends upon the application's certificate management settings. I have found many apps to work fine with out continous re-verification.

Best bet? Block it for a few days and see what happens.

[Namie]

Hmm, for some reason when I reopen Word, it's not asking me anymore... very weird.

Perhaps the certificate has been revoked, thus the problem resolved. Or it could just be set to check every so many application loads.

If you do not notice any usability problems, then I would not worry about it.

[Namie]

What was the certificate for?

Probably for a macro you have unknowingly added at some point.

[Namie]

Sorry but could you tell me what Macro is? Economics? lol j/k...