1. A method of providing a Certificate Status Service (“CSS”) for checking validities of authentication certificates issued by respective issuing Certification Authorities (“CAs”), comprising the steps of: identifying information needed for retrieving a status of an authentication certificate from an issuing CA that issued the authentication certificate; configuring a connector based on the identified information for communicating with the issuing CA; communicating with the issuing CA according to the configured connector when the status of the authentication certificate is queried; and retrieving the status of the authentication certificate; wherein the issuing CA and the connector are designated on a list of approved CAs in a configuration store.