A method, system and apparatus for authenticating target recipients for digital certificates. A certificate authority authentication system receives a request from an entity for a digital certificate including untrusted certificate validation data. The authentication system initiates a communication link using to untrusted certificate validation data to generate verified untrusted certificate validation data. Subsequently or concurrently, the system obtains, from a confirmation computing system, trusted certificate validation data. The authentication system compares the verified untrusted certificate validation data with the trusted certificate validation data and, based on the comparison, authenticates the entity and issues the requested digital certificate.