.Net - X509Certificate2 vs X509Certificate

Question

What is the difference between the two?

Answer 1

.Net Security Workshop gives an overview. See section 13.3.

Answer 2

The x509Certificate was introduced in .NET v1.0/1.1 and was (comparatively) limited in its functionality. It can be used to get information about an existing certificate (valid dates, issuer, etc.). It had simple methods/operations (i.e. reading a cert from disk).

The x509Certificate2 is a superclass of the x509Certificate.

• It represents an actual X509 certificate.
• It was new in the .NET Framework v2.0.
• This class gives you access to all the V2 and V3 properties (authority key identifier and key usage).
• It supports loading a certificate from a certificate store.