The Department of Defense (DoD) established an accreditation process to create trust relationships with certification authorities outside of the DoD domain. These External Certification Authorities (ECAs) will provide non-DoD personnel with certificate services that interoperate with the DoD Public Key Infrastruscture (PKI). Contractors, vendors and other interested parties may use certificates obtained from an accredited ECA to transact electronic business with DoD entities.

As part of the accreditation process, ECAs must achieve an assurance level equivalent to or greater than the DoD PKI Medium Assurance Policy. The Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) will perform standards compliance testing of ECA-issued certificates, certificate revocation lists (CRLs) and online certificate status protocol request and response formats (collectively ECA-issued objects), and interoperability testing of ECA-issued certificates and CRLs in order to ensure ECAs achieve this assurance level. Operational testing will still need to be completed for full compliance.

JITC will conduct the ECA standards compliance and interoperability tests at its PKE laboratory at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Testing is based on JITC's DoD PKI ECA Master Test Plan, version 1.0, dated August 2003.

The following table contains information on ECAs that JITC is currently working with and ECAs that are certified. Any questions about the application on this list visit the POC page.

Reference in this website to any specific commercial products, process, service, manufacturer or company does not constitute its endorsement or recommendation by the United States Government.

Top of Page