Index: plexus-components/plexus-formica/src/main/java/org/codehaus/plexus/formica/validation/UrlSourceValidator.java
===================================================================
--- plexus-components/plexus-formica/src/main/java/org/codehaus/plexus/formica/validation/UrlSourceValidator.java	(revision 2413)
+++ plexus-components/plexus-formica/src/main/java/org/codehaus/plexus/formica/validation/UrlSourceValidator.java	(working copy)
@@ -10,10 +10,17 @@
 import org.codehaus.plexus.formica.FormicaException;
 import org.codehaus.plexus.personality.plexus.lifecycle.phase.Initializable;
 
+import java.io.InputStream;
+import java.net.HttpURLConnection;
 import java.net.URL;
 import java.net.MalformedURLException;
-import java.io.InputStream;
 
+import javax.net.ssl.HttpsURLConnection;
+import javax.net.ssl.SSLContext;
+import javax.net.ssl.TrustManager;
+import javax.net.ssl.X509TrustManager;
+
+
 /**
  * @plexus.component
  *  role-hint="url-source"
@@ -28,6 +35,7 @@
 public class UrlSourceValidator
     extends AbstractValidator
 {
+	
     public boolean validate( String urlString )
     {
         try
@@ -38,13 +46,16 @@
             // want to make sure the URL corresponds to an existing resource.
             // ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
-            //TODO: we need to support authentication (CONTINUUM-258)
+        	// if it is a https connection then we have a bit more work to do
+            if ( urlString != null && urlString.startsWith("https") ) {
+            	return validateSecureURL( urlString );
+            } else {
+                URL url = new URL( urlString );
 
-            URL url = new URL( urlString );
+                InputStream is = url.openStream();
 
-            InputStream is = url.openStream();
-
-            is.close();
+                is.close();
+            }
         }
         catch ( Exception e )
         {
@@ -53,4 +64,90 @@
 
         return true;
     }
+    
+    /* this bit attempts to ignore certificates that might need to be accepted and also tries to 
+     * conform to the format https://<username>:<password>@host
+     *  
+     * adapted from code snippets from http://javaalmanac.com/egs/javax.net.ssl/TrustAll.html *
+     */
+    public boolean validateSecureURL( String urlString ) {
+    
+        try {
+        	
+    		// Create a trust manager that does not validate certificate
+    		// chains
+    	    TrustManager[] trustAllCerts = new TrustManager[] {
+    	         new X509TrustManager() {
+    		              public java.security.cert.X509Certificate[] getAcceptedIssuers() {
+    		                 return null;
+    		              }
+    		              public void checkClientTrusted(
+    		                    java.security.cert.X509Certificate[] certs, String authType) {
+    		              }
+    		              public void checkServerTrusted(
+    		                    java.security.cert.X509Certificate[] certs, String authType) {
+    		              }
+    		     }
+    		};
+
+    		// Install the all-trusting trust manager
+    		      
+    	    SSLContext sslContext = SSLContext.getInstance("SSL");
+    		sslContext.init(null, trustAllCerts, new java.security.SecureRandom());
+    		HttpsURLConnection.setDefaultSSLSocketFactory(sslContext.getSocketFactory());
+        	
+            String username = scrapeUsername( urlString );
+            String password = scrapePassword( urlString );
+            String authString = username + ":" + password;
+            String cleanUrl = scrapeUrl( urlString );
+        	
+            URL url = new URL( cleanUrl );
+
+            HttpURLConnection urlc = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
+            
+            urlc.setDoInput( true );
+            urlc.setUseCaches( false );
+
+            urlc.setRequestProperty( "Content-Type", "application/octet-stream" );
+            
+            if (username != null && password != null) {
+                urlc.setRequestProperty( "Authorization", "Basic " + new sun.misc.BASE64Encoder().encode( authString.getBytes() ) );
+            }
+
+            InputStream is = urlc.getInputStream();
+            is.close();
+          
+        } catch (Exception e) {
+           return false;
+        }
+        return true;
+    }
+    
+    /*
+     * return the username from https://<name>:<password>@<url>
+     */
+    private String scrapeUsername (String url) {
+        String t = url.substring(8, url.length());
+        return t.substring(0, t.indexOf(":"));
+    }
+
+    /*
+     * return to password from https://<name>:<password>@<url>
+     */
+    private String scrapePassword (String url) {
+       String t = url.substring(8, url.length());
+       return t.substring(t.indexOf(":") + 1, t.indexOf("@"));
+    }
+
+     /*
+      * return the url from https://<name>:<password>@<url>
+      */
+     private String scrapeUrl (String url) {
+    	 if (url.indexOf("@") != -1) {
+    		 return "https://" + url.substring(url.indexOf("@") + 1, url.length());
+    	 } else {
+    		 return url;
+    	 }
+     }
+
 }