Comodo
More info
- Creator
- Melih Abdulhayoğlu
- Released
- 1998
- Type
- Security / certificate authority
- Successor
- Sectigo (the CA business)
One of the web's largest certificate authorities, and the source of one of its most embarrassing breaches.
Founded in 1998 by Melih Abdulhayoğlu, it became one of the largest certificate authorities on the web through the 2000s, partly by handing out free email certificates and cheap TLS certificates in volume. Alongside that, Comodo sold antivirus and firewall software to consumers.
In 2011 a reseller was hacked and tricked the system into issuing fraudulent certificates for Google, Yahoo and others — an early reminder of how fragile trust in the CA model is. The certificate business was spun out and renamed Sectigo in 2018. Compare DigiCert and the free alternative Let's Encrypt.
Sources
Comodo