Is the Verisign Timestamp server down?

Question

I was trying to build my setup scripts with Inno Setup these past two days (1 & 2 Jan 2021) and the digital signing was failing. So I contacted Verisign via email and await their response.

Answer 1

I received an official response from Verisign this afternoon (on 2 Jan 2021):

Thank you for contacting Verisign Support.

This server was deprecated after our authentication services were sold to Symantec, which is now Digicert. You can find a list of free timestamp servers online or theirs is now at http://timestamp.digicert.com.

If you have additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

So the http://timestamp.verisign.com timestamp server is no more.

At the moment I know of the following alternatives (in addition to Digicert above) which work well:

• http://timestamp.comodoca.com/authenticode
• http://timestamp.globalsign.com/scripts/timestamp.dll
• http://tsa.starfieldtech.com

Answer 2

When using Microsoft's SignTool.exe

Change the timestamping server (-t):

• Before: signcode -t "http://timestamp.verisign.com/scripts/timstamp.dll" (defunct)
• After:    signcode -t "http://timestamp.digicert.com"