Our Success Story

2021-04-25 HARICA HARICA

Several years ago, an idea was born for an innovative (at the time) project based on the need for increased protection/security measures to encrypt communications over insecure networks, such as the Internet.

A team of Information and Communication Engineers from various Greek Universities and Research Centers collaborated and created a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) that served and covered the security needs of the Academic and Research Institutions of Greece for SSL/TLS server and S/MIME certificates.

The project was successful and in the process our services were enriched, covering the growing needs of the Academic and Research Institutions. But we did not stop there. We wanted to offer our services outside the Academic/Research community.

Thus, we created the Certification Authority of the Hellenic Academic and Research Institutions (HARICA), which was initially supported by the National Research and Technology Network (GRnet) and then funded by the non-profit, civil company, Greek Universities Network (GUnet).

We started off by joining the Mozilla Root CA Program, which, even today, is the most strict and best supervised Global Certification Authority trust program, and gradually joined other major public trust programs.

After almost 15 years, HARICA is a Globally “Trusted Third Party” entity that simultaneously participates in all major Global “ROOT CA” Trust Programs (360, Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla, Oracle) and operates as a “Trust Anchor” in International Software Companies and Operating Systems (Adobe, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Linux, Oracle Java).

Today HARICA’s services cover the full range of digital certificate needs and timestamps:

from the basic security level on SSL / TLS servers for individuals, businesses, and organizations
to the maximum level of security indication of large organizations (SSL EV, SSL QWAC, SSL QWAC-PSD2) fully meeting the requirements of Regulation (EU) 910/2014 (eIDAS) and Directive (EU) 2015/2366 on Payment Services (PSD2).

We provide products and services to individuals, companies and organizations:

S/MIME, certificates for digital signing and encrypting emails,
Code Signing, certificates used for digital software signing,
E-Signature, “Qualified” Electronic Signatures which replace the handwritten signatures, as well as “Advanced” Electronic Signatures and
E-Seal, electronic seals for Legal Entities, which, like its handwritten counterpart in the offline world, an electronic seal is a legal concept capturing the signatory’s intent to be bound by the terms of the signed document.

And we continue with the same enthusiasm, more structured and more experienced, improving and enriching our services offering the maximum security to our digital world.