Digital Certificates

Install Your Digital Certificate

A personal digital certificate is like a digital ID card that resides on your computer. At UVA, you can use your certificate to authenticate to numerous services including:

• eduroam WiFi
• NetBadge
• UVA Virtual Private Network (VPN) Profiles

Download Your Certificate:

1. 1. Open the UVA Network Setup Tool (Limited).
   2. Click "Sign In", then log in through NetBadge.
   3. At the following screen, enter a "User Description" to help identify the certificate, then click Create.
      
   4. Follow the prompts to download your digital certificate. You will then see a prompt asking you to create a passphrase. Be aware that this passphrase has a 15-character limit and other restrictions. Remember this passphrase as it will be your certificate passphrase for Step 6 of “Install Your Certificate” below.
      
   5. You should then see the following prompt. Click on "P12" and save the certificate file:
      

   Install Your Certificate:

   
   
   1. Open a new Firefox browser window. Click the menu button in the top-right corner, then select "Settings".
   2. Select Privacy & Security, then scroll down to Certificates.
   3. Click the View Certificates... button to the right, then select the Your Certificates tab.
   4. Select Import.
   5. In your "Downloads" folder, select the most recent UVA digital certificate - it should say your name, followed by a number. If you see multiple UVA certificates, then select the one with the biggest number (e.g., John Smith 22, not John Smith 21). Then, press Open.
   6. You will be prompted to enter a passphrase; this is the passphrase you just created in Step 4 of the "Download Your Certificate" instructions above.
   7. Press OK and you're done! You can now use your UVA personal digital certificate to log in through NetBadge using Firefox.
      
      • *Note: If successful, you should receive an email from "info@securew2.com" with the subject line "Your University of Virginia Personal Digital Certificate has been issued."

Digital certificate renewal emails will come from notifications@securew2.com. However, you should always hover over any links in an email to ensure they go to the correct destination (in this case, https://in.virginia.edu/installcert) to verify that they aren't a phishing attempt. The digital certificate renewal emails will also include a UVA Help Desk reference number.

If you are ever unsure of the validity of an email, you should report the message to abuse@virginia.edu. You can also check the validity of a reference number by contacting the UVA Help Desk (434-924-4357).

Personal digital certificates are valid for 13 months. Approximately one month prior to the expiration date, you will receive a reminder email from "notifications@securew2.com" letting you know that you have a certificate about to expire. When this happens, simply get a new personal digital certificate. Please refer to the instructions on this webpage to determine how you can renew your certificate, based on the device and if you are on Grounds or off Grounds.

Note: You will receive expiration emails for each device on which you have a certificate installed. If you continue to receive emails after you renewed your device certificate, the emails are referencing an expiring certificate on a different device or a device that you are no longer using.

See the Locate Your Digital Certificate page for instructions on finding your certificate and its expiration date.

Try installing a new digital certificate using one of the options listed at the top of the page or contact the UVA Help Desk for assistance.

Although this is possible with some email applications, ITS strongly advises against using your certificate to encrypt email. If you are using a digital certificate to identify yourself for things like VPN login (e.g., UVA Anywhere, UVA More Secure Network), connections to eduroam WiFi, and signing email, there is no reason to be concerned about having multiple certificates on different machines or in different applications.

The only case where you need to have a single certificate in different locations is if you are sending and receiving encrypted email. In that case, you will need to maintain a copy of the digital certificate you use for that purpose, both to allow you to copy it to multiple locations, and because losing that certificate will result in the loss of access to mail encrypted based on the private key associated with that certificate.

If the UVA Network Setup Tool fails to run and install a digital certificate, see UVA Network Setup Tool FAQs for troubleshooting tips.