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I have an e-commerce site host name (example.com) and want to install an Extended Validation TLS certificate for it.

But I use a cookieless static content served from another host name (static.example.com) for images of the website.

To be "Google Shopping friendly" and for secure e-commerce reasons, can I use Let's Encrypt or other domain-validated TLS certificates for static.example.com and EV certificates for example.com?

I have gone through this kind of question online but those were was similar to my situation.

It is possible to have multiple certificates from different vendors for different parts of the domain and even have overlapping certificates., i.e. multiple certificates which could be used to authenticate the same domain.

Browsers actually only care that a specific certificate is valid for the specific domain it is used on and don't care if the same certificate could also be used for other domains. They also only care that all content is served over HTTPS (i.e. no mixed content) but don't care if some content is served with a EV certificate while other content is served with DV certificate only.

Apart from that, I recommend to read Extended Validation Certificates are Dead to get a better opinion if EV certificates are worth their money at all.

Yes you can, with some caveats.

Normally, letsencrypt certificate are valid for a single FQDN. So you can create an domain-identified only (DV) certificate for static.example.com and an EV-identified certificate for your root domain.

Note be careful that another consideration applies when using wildcard certificate and some multi domain certificate. Some CAs (including LetsEncrypt) may issue a wildcard that will also be valid for the root domain because the CA may automatically add the root to the SAN (subject alternative name) even if you don't explicitly list your root domain when requesting the certificate (the CA can do this since wildcard certificate verification method requires that you demonstrate control/ownership of the domain's DNS). Check the SAN field of the certificate to be sure that your certificate are covering exactly what you expected and no more.

A couple security notes though, be careful of server settings that may apply to all subdomains, like certain Cookies and HSTS config.

There are three options for this situation:

1. Go with wildcard ssl certificate to secure your root and its sub domains because it remains easy for you because through option you will have to manage only one certificate for both root and its sub domain that helps to save your time & money.


2. If want EV SSL for root domain example.com and also want to secure sub domain static.example.com then go for Symantec EV SSL which now gives facility to secure multi domain with it. (Usually remains high in the price).


3. If want EV SSL for root domain example.com and also want to secure sub domain static.example.com then other affordable option is EV Multi Domain SSL because it helps you to get ev ssl for your all multiple domains (which you will include in SAN category). Means your both both root as well as sub domain will be secured with EV SSL.

It has been established that there's no technical limitations:

• You can buy certificates for the same domain from different sources.




• DV and EV certificates can be mixed on different subdomains or even on different instances of the very same hostname, like e.g. Twitter does.




• Wildcard and multidomain certificates can co-exists on the same domain in any combination.

In his answer Lie Ryan explains some caveats I would like to extend a little and then provide some solutions that don't directly answer the question, but may be helpful in this situation. This is also what truly makes this a security question rather than a general question about server configuration.

It's not only you who could get a DV certificate under your domain, whether it already has an EV certificate or not, but anyone who has access to the document root on your subdomain can get a DV certificate for it. It's very common that using some third party service requires an additional A / AAAA record to your DNS zone.

Administrative control though CAA records

In this situation Certification Authority Authorization (CAA) Resource Records specified in RFC 6844 may become useful. It was mandated in Sep 2017 by CA/Browser Forum, so now it's finally useful. If you would like e.g. only Symantec to issue certificates for your domain, you'd add a DNS record:

example.com. IN CAA 128 issue "symantec.com"

Now, you need also to have Let's Encrypt for your static.example.com and for that subdomain alone i.e. you don't want thirdparty.example.com to be able to get one, too. The CAA is inherited from the parent domain, but a new CAA record will override it. Finally, issue ";" states no CA should issue a certificate.

static.example.com. IN CAA 128 issue "letsencrypt.org"
thirdparty.example.com. IN CAA 128 issue ";"

Technical control through HTTP Public Key Pinning (HPKP)

This is technically stronger than the CAA approach, paranoia level up, but is not an alternative to it. There's this Public-Key-Pins response header that could list hashes for your certificates.

The server having your EV certificate can introduce your static.example.com DV certificate's public key with its own, making both trusted by the browsers and anything else untrusted. But this can also be a lot more dangerous:

HPKP has the potential to lock out users for a long time if used
incorrectly! The use of backup certificates and/or pinning the CA
certificate is recommend.