An Extended Validation Certificate (EV) is an X.509 public key certificate issued according to a specific set of identity verification criteria. These criteria require extensive verification of the requesting entity’s identity by the certificate authority (CA) before a certificate is issued.

Certificates issued by a CA under the EV guidelines are not structurally different from other certificates (and hence provide no stronger cryptography than other, cheaper certificates), but are designated with a CA-specific policy identifier so that EV-aware software can recognize them.
The criteria for issuing EV certificates are defined by the Guidelines for Extended Validation Certificates. The guidelines are produced by the CA/Browser Forum, a voluntary organization whose members include leading CAs and vendors of Internet software, as well as representatives from the legal and audit professions.