OCSP may be used in any cryptographic system, such as a public key infrastructure (PKI) system, for accessing the status of digital certificates. For example, the status of a digital certificate may be determined to be valid or to have been revoked. A request to initiate a connection may include transmission of a digital certificate of the initiating device that has to be validated. If the status on the certificate is found to be revoked and/or invalid, the request may be refused. In some embodiments, the request for connection may be a request to establish a SSL connection. A client device and a server may establish an SSL connection via a series of handshaking messages.