"Ultimately, the power is in the hands of the browser makers to trust any CA," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Security. "Going by that logic, the browsers then have the same power to create the demise of a CA."

Microsoft declined to comment on the death of DigiNotar, and neither Mozilla or Google responded to a request for comment.

Vasco purchased DigiNotar in January for $13.1 million, and in its most recent quarterly filing with the SEC, tallied the Dutch company's "goodwill" and "intangible assets" at nearly $12.8 million. In its Tuesday statement, Vasco said it was still working on putting a number to DigiNotar's vanishing act, but voiced confidence that some of DigiNotar's intellectual property rights would still be valuable.

Vasco also distanced its own products and services from the now-dead Dutch firm.

"The incident at DigiNotar has no impact on Vasco's core authentication technology," argued T. Kendall Hunt, Vasco's CEO and chairman.