Menu
homeiOS

Checking secure connections in Mozilla Firefox. Checking secure connections in mozilla firefox - Operating instructions KASPERSKY LAB KAV2011 - Kaspersky Firefox antivirus complains about certificates

When I installed Kaspersky antivirus, or rather Kaspersky Internet Security for all devices (Version 2016 (16.0.0.614)) on a newly purchased laptop with the Windows 8.1 x64 operating system, the first time I tried to access the Yandex website (this is also true for Google) I received the following warning in the FireFox x64 v43.0.0 browser window:

At the same time, most other sites operating using the HTTPS protocol, including my blog, opened quite normally. That is, there were no crashes in the browser.

How Kaspersky checks SSL-protected connections

Kaspersky Anti-Virus verifies SSL-protected connections by installing a Kaspersky Lab certificate (self-signed certificate). And the absence of such a certificate in the browser storage leads to the described error. Automatic installation of the certificate works for the Internet Explorer browser. And for Mozilla Firefox, in order to fix the error described above, you need to manually register the certificate in the browser settings.

How to add Kaspersky certificate to FireFox

To add a certificate from Kaspersky, follow these steps:
Go to your browser settings

In the "Advanced" section of the "Certificates" menu, click the [View Certificates] button

In the “Certification Authorities” tab, click the [Import...] button

Select a certificate (fake)Kaspersky Anti-Virus personal root certificate.cer. Which for Kaspersky 16.0.0.614 in Windows 8.1 is located at C:\ProgramData\Kaspersky Lab\AVP16.0.0\DataCert and click the [Open] button
If you don't see the folder in the browser ProgramData, then read how to fix it.

In the window that appears, select the required options (I selected all). And click [OK]

Now in the list of FireFox certificate stores you should see a Kaspersky Lab certificate, which the browser will consider trusted.

After carrying out all the above steps, Yandex and Google sites began to open normally.

How to allow viewing of hidden folders in Windows Explorer

Go to the control panel and select "Folder Options"

In the “View” tab, check the box at the very bottom “Show hidden files, folders and drives”

An alternative solution for unblocking the HTTPS protocol in Kaspersky

This option consists of disabling Kaspersky scanning of secure connections. To do this, go to your antivirus settings:

In the “Advanced” menu item, select the “network” section:

And in it, disable the scanning of secure connections:

In this case, the antivirus will give you a warning that the level of computer protection in this case will be lower.

If, when you try to establish a secure connection with any site using the https:// protocol (for example, https://security.webmoney.ru) in the Google Chrome browser window you see the following picture, then you need to install root certificate Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal Root Certificate.

To do this, find the certificate on your computer at the path * r, and then in the menu Settings -> Additional settings, In chapter HTTPS/SSL click on the button "Configure certificates" .
If you don’t see such a folder, turn it on following instructions.
* Note! The path may differ depending on the version of Kaspersky Lab antivirus installed on you.
If the path is different, it is better to install the latest version of the antivirus. There is a high probability that after this the problem will disappear on its own, and all subsequent actions will not need to be performed.
Links to download the latest versions of Kaspersky Lab products:

** If you can’t get to the certificate through Explorer, turn on the display of hidden files and folders according to the instructions from articles.

To install the certificate, go to the tab and press the button "Import…",

To select a certificate file, click the button "Review..".

Locate the certificate file on your hard drive along the path c:\ProgramData\Kaspersky Lab\AVP17.0.0\Data\Cert\(fake)Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal Root Certificate.ce r and press the button "Open" and then the button "Next >".

Please note that the default certificate store suggested must be the same as where the root certificate should be placed. If the import was initiated from another section of the certificate store, then you need to select the store using the “Browse...” button "Trusted Root Certification Authorities" and press the button "Next >".

Then you should confirm the completion of the wizard by clicking the button "Ready",

next button "Yes", and finally the button "OK".


To control the correctness of the operations performed in the window Certificates open the tab Trusted Root Certification Authorities and at the end of the list, find the root certificate you installed and open the certificate information window by clicking the button "View". Make sure the certificate is valid.

Close all windows, restart your browser and check the validity of the certificate by establishing a secure connection.

Checking secure connections in Mozilla Firefox

The Mozilla Firefox browser does not use the Microsoft Windows certificate store. To check SSL connections when using Firefox, you must install the Kaspersky Lab certificate manually.

To install a Kaspersky Lab certificate, follow these steps:

  1. In the Certificates block, select the Security tab and click the button View certificates.
  2. Certification Authorities and click on the Restore button.
  3. .

To install a Kaspersky Lab certificate for Mozilla Firefox version 3.x, follow these steps:

  1. In the browser menu, select Tools ® Settings.
  2. In the window that opens, select the Advanced section.
  3. On the Encryption tab, click the button View certificates.
  4. In the window that opens, select a bookmark Certification Authorities and click on the Import button.
  5. In the window that opens, select the Kaspersky Lab certificate file. Path to the Kaspersky Lab certificate file: %AllUsersProfile%\Application Data\Kaspersky Lab\AVP60MP4\Data\Cert\(fake)Kaspersky Anti-Virus personal root certificate.cer.
  6. In the window that opens, check the boxes to select actions for which the installed certificate will be used for verification. To view information about the certificate, use the View button.

If your computer is running the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system, then the path to the Kaspersky Lab certificate file will be as follows: %AllUsersProfile%\Kaspersky Lab\AVP60MP4\Data\Cert\(fake)Kaspersky Anti-Virus personal root certificate.cer.

On websites which are supposed to be secure (the URL begins with "http s://"), Firefox must verify that the certificate presented by the website is valid. If the certificate cannot be validated, Firefox will stop the connection to the website and show a "Warning: Potential Security Risk Ahead" error page instead.

This article explains why you might see SEC_ERROR_UNKNOWN_ISSUER, MOZILLA_PKIX_ERROR_MITM_DETECTED or ERROR_SELF_SIGNED_CERT error codes on an error page and how to troubleshoot it.

Table of Contents

What does this error code mean?

During a secure connection, a website must provide a certificate issued by a trusted certificate authority to ensure that the user is connected to the intended target and the connection is encrypted. If you click the Advanced button on a "Warning: Potential Security Risk Ahead" error page and you see the error code SEC_ERROR_UNKNOWN_ISSUER or MOZILLA_PKIX_ERROR_MITM_DETECTED, it means that the provided certificate was issued by a certificate authority that is not known by Firefox and therefore cannot be trusted by default.

The error occurs on multiple secure sites

In case you get this problem on multiple unrelated HTTPS sites, it indicates that something on your system or network is intercepting your connection and injecting certificates in a way that is not trusted by Firefox. The most common causes are security software scanning encrypted connections or malware listening in, replacing legitimate website certificates with their own. In particular, the error code MOZILLA_PKIX_ERROR_MITM_DETECTED indicates that Firefox is able to detect that the connection is intercepted.

Antivirus products

Third-party antivirus software can interfere with Firefox's secure connections. You could try reinstalling it, which might trigger the software into placing its certificates into the Firefox trust store again.

We recommend uninstalling your third-party software and using the security software offered for Windows by Microsoft:

  • Windows 8 and Windows 10 - Windows Defender (built-in)

If you do not want to uninstall your third-party software, you could try reinstalling it, which might trigger the software into placing its certificates into the Firefox trust store again.

Here are some alternative solutions you can try:

Avast/AVG

In Avast or AVG security products you can disable the interception of secure connections:

  1. Open the dashboard of your Avast or AVG application.
  2. Go to Menu and click on Settings > Protection > Core Shields.
  3. Scroll down to the Configure shield settings section and click on Web Shield.
  4. Uncheck the box next to Enable HTTPS Scanning and confirm this by clicking OK .

    In older versions of the product you"ll find the corresponding option when you go to Menu > Settings > Components and click Customize next to Web Shield

Bitdefender

In Bitdefender security products you can disable the interception of secure connections:

  1. Open the dashboard of your Bitdefender application.
  2. Go to Protection and in the Online Threat Prevention section click on Settings.
  3. Toggle off the Encrypted Web Scan setting.

    In older versions of the product you can find the corresponding option labeled Scan SSL when you go to Modules > Web Protection

In Bitdefender Antivirus Free it"s not possible to control this setting. You can try to repair or remove the program instead when you"re having problems accessing secure websites.

For corporate Bitdefender products, please refer to this Bitdefender Support Center page.

Bullguard

In Bullguard security products you can disable the interception of secure connections on particular major websites like Google, Yahoo and Facebook:

  1. Open the dashboard of your Bullguard application.
  2. Click on Settings and enable the Advanced view on the top right of the panel.
  3. Go to Antivirus > Safe browsing.
  4. Uncheck the Show safe results option for those websites which are showing an error message.

ESET

In ESET security products you can try to disable and re-enable SSL/TLS protocol filtering or generally disable the interception of secure connections as described in ESET’s support article.

Kaspersky

Affected users of Kaspersky should upgrade to the most recent version of their security product, as Kaspersky 2019 and above contain mitigations for this problem. The Kaspersky Downloads page includes "update" links that will install the latest version free of charge for users with a current subscription.

Otherwise, you can also disable the interception of secure connections:

  1. Open the dashboard of your Kaspersky application.
  2. Click on Settings on the bottom-left.
  3. Click Additional and then Network.
  4. In the Encrypted connections scanning section check the Do not scan encrypted connections option and confirm this change.
  5. Finally, reboot your system for the changes to take effect.

Family Safety settings in Windows accounts

In Microsoft Windows accounts protected by Family Safety settings, secure connections on popular websites like Google, Facebook and YouTube might be intercepted and their certificates replaced by a certificate issued by Microsoft in order to filter and record search activity.

Monitoring/filtering in corporate networks

Some traffic monitoring/filtering products used in corporate environments might intercept encrypted connections by replacing a website's certificate with their own, at the same time possibly triggering errors on secure HTTPS-sites.

If you suspect this might be the case, please contact your IT department to ensure the correct configuration of Firefox to enable it working properly in such an environment, as the necessary certificate might have to be placed in the Firefox trust store first. More information for IT departments on how to go about this can be found in the Mozilla Wiki page CA:AddRootToFirefox.

Malware

Some forms of malware intercepting encrypted web traffic can cause this error message - refer to the article Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware on how to deal with malware problems.

The error occurs on one particular site only

In case you get this problem on one particular site only, this type of error generally indicates that the web server is not configured properly. However, if you see this error on a legitimate major website like Google or Facebook or sites where financial transactions take place, you should continue with the .

Certificate issued by a authority belonging to Symantec

After a number of irregularities with certificates issued by Symantec root authorities came to light, browser vendors including Mozilla are gradually removing trust from these certificates in their products. Firefox will no longer trust server certificates issued by Symantec, including those issued under the GeoTrust, RapidSSL, Thawte and Verisign brands. For more information, see this Mozilla blog post and this compatibility document.

MOZILLA_PKIX_ERROR_ADDITIONAL_POLICY_CONSTRAINT_FAILED will be the primary error but with some servers, you may see the error code SEC_ERROR_UNKNOWN_ISSUER instead. In any case, if you come across such a site you should contact the owner of the website to inform them of the problem.

Mozilla strongly encourages operators of affected sites to take immediate action to replace these certificates. DigiCert is providing