Private company
StartCom
StartCom was a certificate authority founded in Eilat, Israel, and later based in Beijing, China, that had three main activities: StartCom Enterprise Linux (Linux distribution), StartSSL (certificate authority) and MediaHost (web hosting). StartCom set up branch offices in China, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and Spain.2 It ceased to exist in 2018.1 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0
Last updated Oct 21, 2026.
Overview
- HeadquartersEilat1
- Websitewww.startcom.org
- Legal formlimited company1
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StartCom was a certificate authority founded in Eilat, Israel, and later based in Beijing, China, that had three main activities: StartCom Enterprise Linux (Linux distribution), StartSSL (certificate authority) and MediaHost (web hosting). StartCom set up branch offices in China, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and Spain. Due to multiple faults on the company's end, all StartCom certificates were removed from Mozilla Firefox in October 2016 and Google Chrome in March 2017, including certificates previously issued, with similar removals from other browsers expected to follow.2
Controversies and legal
Controversies
In August 2016 it was reported that StartCom was sold to WoSign, a Chinese CA. The original disclosure was taken down for legal reasons. However, repostings of the original articles are still available. The relationship is unclear, but it seems as if the StartCom technical infrastructure was being used by WoSign when they were caught issuing about a hundred improperly validated SSL certificates, including a certificate for github.com.
An investigation by Google and Mozilla found that WoSign knowingly and intentionally mis-issued certificates in order to circumvent browser restrictions and CA requirements. As a result, Google joined Mozilla and Apple and planned to distrust all WoSign and StartCom certificates beginning in 2017. On July 17, 2017, an announcement was made about the restructuring of the company. It was announced that StartCom is now 100% managed by Qihoo 360, no StartCom employees are working on WoSign premises, audits have been made by external pen testers, and a new CMS system was developed.
From Wikipedia’s article on StartCom, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3
Timeline
Links
- Websitewww.startcom.org1
- WikipediaStartCom
- WikidataQ1326469
Sources
The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.
- 1WikidataStartCom on Wikidata
- 2WikipediaStartCom on Wikipedia
- 3