Index: plexus-components/plexus-formica/src/test/java/org/codehaus/plexus/formica/validation/UrlValidatorTest.java
===================================================================
--- plexus-components/plexus-formica/src/test/java/org/codehaus/plexus/formica/validation/UrlValidatorTest.java	(revision 2413)
+++ plexus-components/plexus-formica/src/test/java/org/codehaus/plexus/formica/validation/UrlValidatorTest.java	(working copy)
@@ -20,6 +20,8 @@
 
         assertTrue( v.validate( "http://localhost/pom.xml" ) );
 
+//        assertTrue( v.validate( "https://username:password@host/loc/pom.xml" ) );
+
         assertTrue( v.validate( "file://myserver/pom.xml" ) );
 
         assertTrue( v.validate( "file:///pom.xml" ) );
Index: plexus-components/plexus-formica/src/test/java/org/codehaus/plexus/formica/validation/UrlSourceValidatorTest.java
===================================================================
--- plexus-components/plexus-formica/src/test/java/org/codehaus/plexus/formica/validation/UrlSourceValidatorTest.java	(revision 2413)
+++ plexus-components/plexus-formica/src/test/java/org/codehaus/plexus/formica/validation/UrlSourceValidatorTest.java	(working copy)
@@ -47,4 +47,5 @@
 
         assertFalse( v.validate( u ) );
     }
+
 }
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)
@@ -3,17 +3,12 @@
  */
 package org.codehaus.plexus.formica.validation;
 
-import org.apache.oro.text.regex.MalformedPatternException;
-import org.apache.oro.text.regex.Pattern;
-import org.apache.oro.text.regex.Perl5Compiler;
-import org.apache.oro.text.regex.Perl5Matcher;
-import org.codehaus.plexus.formica.FormicaException;
-import org.codehaus.plexus.personality.plexus.lifecycle.phase.Initializable;
+import org.codehaus.plexus.formica.util.MungedHttpsURL;
 
+import java.io.InputStream;
 import java.net.URL;
-import java.net.MalformedURLException;
-import java.io.InputStream;
 
+
 /**
  * @plexus.component
  *  role-hint="url-source"
@@ -28,6 +23,7 @@
 public class UrlSourceValidator
     extends AbstractValidator
 {
+
     public boolean validate( String urlString )
     {
         try
@@ -38,13 +34,21 @@
             // 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, currently 
+            // only accepting the munged https url that is resolved in MungedHttpsURL
+            if ( urlString != null && urlString.startsWith( "https" ) )
+            {
+                return new MungedHttpsURL( urlString ).isValid();
+            }
+            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 )
         {