The Digital Skeptic: Amateurs Are Taking Over, and Risking, Web Security

SAN FRANCISCO(TheStreet) -- Ben Wilson tries hard not to show it. But he's worried. Really worried.

"If somebody gets a hold of one these things, it's not just one site that gets taken out," said Wilson, the senior vice president and general counsel for DigiCert, a Lindon, Utah, Internet security firm, over a hip hotel burger lunch.

"It's, you know, hundreds. Thousands of sites. Heck, maybe more," Wilson said.

The "thing" Wilson is sweating is called a certificate authority -- or CA in geek speak. That's the hidden, but critical, Web security organ that enables parts of secure Web transactions when say, shopping at Amazon (AMZN) or giving your tax ID to IRS.gov or buying and selling stock online at E*Trade (ETFC) .

"The volume CAs handle can be a major fraction of total Web traffic," said David Rockvam, senior vice president for certificate services at Entrust, a Dallas security firm. Entrust and DigiCert are among a half-dozen certificate authorities that control about 90% of the certificate authority market.

"Keeping them secure is critical," Rockvam said.

Wilson and Rockvam had invited me away from the crazy-busy RSA Conference, the computer security nerd Lollapalooza hosted by the security division of drive-maker EMC (EMC) . Here in the relative quiet, the two gave me the lowdown on the new dangers for CAs, away from the hordes gawking at big, sexy security companies such as VeriSign (VRSN) , ZixCorp, Symantec (SYMC) , StrikeForce Technologies (SFOR) and dozens of well-funded start-ups.

What makes Wilson and Rockvam so jittery is how -- not unlike publishing, movies and financial services -- the barriers to entry to becoming a CA, albeit a small one, have dropped to the point where Wilson estimates there are 60 to several hundred active certificate authorities.

"And if you are your own CA, you can do whatever you want," Rockvam explained. "Until you are discovered."

That makes CAs awfully attractive targets.