Code Signing certificates - WTAF?

[silentbrown]

Have had one for years - price was always about $50-75 per year.
Now need to renew - cost this year, over $300!

Anyone know why?

[onomatopoeia]

Ours costs around that, but for about the last 7 or 8 years we've had an extended validation certificate, because smartscreen is a nuisance. It means the private key comes on a USB token and is not accessible by us, rather than in a plain text file by email or download.

Since the middle of this year, all code signing certificates are now issued this way so the costs have gone up. CAs have insisted on this as there have been a lot of compromised keys.