Telephone Verification is Step 5 in the Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificate process at ASEOHosting. Once you have submitted your enrollment form and the Certificate Authority has begun checking your organisation, it needs to confirm that a real, authorised person at your company actually requested the certificate. The telephone call is how it closes that loop. To complete this step you fill in and return the Telephone Verification (EV) form that ASEOHosting provides for your order.
Why a phone call is part of EV
An EV certificate is the highest assurance level a public certificate can carry, and it exists to prove that a named legal entity, not just an anonymous website, controls the domain. Because the CA is vouching for your identity, it will not rely on email alone. The telephone verification step confirms two things at once:
- That the phone number is genuinely tied to your organisation, usually by matching it against an independent, publicly listed source such as a qualified business directory or a verified public record rather than a number you simply typed in yourself.
- That a specific, authorised contact at your organisation confirms, on that line, that the certificate request is legitimate and that the person named on the order is allowed to make it.
This is a defensive control. It makes it far harder for someone to impersonate your business and obtain a certificate in your name, which is the whole point of choosing EV over a domain-validated certificate.
What you need to do for Step 5
- Open the Telephone Verification (EV) form supplied with your certificate order and complete the requested details, including the contact who will take the call.
- Make sure the phone number you nominate is one that can be independently verified for your organisation, and that the named contact is reachable during business hours.
- Return the completed form as instructed so the Certificate Authority can schedule and place the verification call.
- Answer the call and confirm the request when the CA rings the listed number.
If the number you want to use is not listed in a recognised public source, that usually has to be resolved before the call can be treated as valid, so it is worth checking this early rather than after the CA tries to reach you.
Where this step sits in the full EV sequence
Telephone Verification does not stand alone. It is one stage in a set of six checks the Certificate Authority runs before it issues an EV certificate:
EV validation sequence 1 Enrollment Form 2 Organisation Auth 3 Operational Existence 4 Physical Address 5 Telephone Verification 6 Domain Auth Step 5 confirms an authorised person at your organisation requested the certificate. All six checks must pass before the EV certificate is issued.The earlier steps establish that your organisation exists and operates from a real address, and the final step proves you control the domain the certificate will secure. Telephone Verification links your identity to the request itself. If any single step is incomplete, issuance stalls, so it helps to keep all of them moving together.
After verification: putting the certificate to work
Once the call is confirmed and the remaining checks clear, the CA issues your EV certificate and you install it on your server. If you are securing a network of sites, remember that a certificate proves identity but does nothing to separate one site's server reputation from another's; that separation comes from how the sites are hosted and addressed, which is where a dedicated IP setup matters. You can review certificate options on our SSL certificates page, and for how a certificate fits alongside dedicated addressing, see the wider SSL certificates FAQ. When it comes time to configure the certificate on your server, Mozilla's SSL configuration generator is a useful, vendor-neutral reference for secure settings.
Common questions
What if the CA cannot reach me? The call has to succeed for the step to pass, so make sure the nominated contact is available on the listed number and that reception knows to expect it. An unanswered or unverifiable number is the most common cause of delay at this stage.
Can I skip telephone verification? No. It is a required part of EV issuance under the standards CAs follow, which is exactly what gives an EV certificate its higher level of assurance.
