University Certification Authority Münster

The Certification Authority (CA) of the University of Münster supplies members and organizational units of the University of Münster and the Academy Of Fine Arts Münster with cryptographic certificates.

These certificates are a core component of digital IDs that can be used by people, groups and servers to identify themselves.

Main use area of the issued certificates is the protection of communication in the internet: Electronic signing, encrypting, and identifying.

The UCAM operates in the context of the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) of the German Research Network Association (DFN-Verein) in support of science, research, and teaching.

Certificates are issued according to the X.509 standard. Electronic signatures created with them are “advanced electronic signatures“ as per eIDAS regulation of the European Union.

Important notice

Please renew already now all personal, nonpersonal and server IDs that will expire in the 1st half of 2025.

The company Sectigo, from which we currently obtain our digital IDs (certificates), has terminated its cooperation with the European research networks and intends to stop issuing certificates prematurely. It is therefore possible that we will not be able to obtain any new browser-anchored certificates for some time to come. (A new provider is already being looked for). You can read about the current status of these unpleasant developments on the DFN PKI pages.

Digital IDs for various purposes

The following guides describe how you can request and use digital IDs (certificates) for various purposes:

Electronically sign emails Login to WWW without password

The email signatures created with these digital IDs are automatically recognized worldwide by all modern email software as valid and the signed emails as genuine.

These digital IDs can be issued for natural persons as well as for groups or functions.

The same digital IDs can also be used to log in to the university's central single sign-on without a password.

Electronically sign PDF documents

The PDF signatures created with these digital IDs should be automatically recognized as valid and the signed documents as authentic by all administrative offices within the University of Münster.

These digital IDs are issued exclusively for natural persons.

Secure servers with TLS

The servers secured with these digital IDs are automatically recognized as genuine worldwide by all modern client software, especially WWW browsers.

Participate in Grid Computing

With these digital IDs, you can participate in global scientific grid computing, in which many powerful computers are linked to form a virtual supercomputer.

These digital IDs are issued exclusively for natural persons.

Electronically sign software

With these digital IDs, you can electronically sign self-developed software (Microsoft Office macros, Java JARs) so that it is recognized as trustworthy by the corresponding operating systems.

These digital IDs are issued exclusively for the university/academy as a legal entity and can therefore only be requested by employees with financial responsibility, and require mandatory crypto hardware.

Login with smartcard or cryptotoken

Mit diesen digitalen ID auf einer Smartcard oder einem Kryptotoken können Sie sich an Windows-Rechnern in einer Active-Directory-Domäne anmelden.

Further guides for special situations

These instructions describe situations that are not covered in the instructions above.