pip search error: SSLError: [SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed (_ssl.c:581)

Question

Not sure what happened, I was able to install ecdsa and paramiko using "pip install". After I installed paramiko, i did a pip search on an additional module I want to download and I am unable to do so. Could I have tripped something on my server? If so, can someone point me in the right direction? I am using a hosted windows 2012 x64 server, python 2.7.9 x64, pip 1.5.6.

here is the full error:

PS C:\Users\user> pip search pysftp
Exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\basecommand.py", line 122, in main
    status = self.run(options, args)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\commands\search.py", line 40, in run
    pypi_hits = self.search(query, index_url)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\commands\search.py", line 54, in search
    hits = pypi.search({'name': query, 'summary': query}, 'or')
  File "C:\Python27\lib\xmlrpclib.py", line 1233, in __call__
    return self.__send(self.__name, args)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\xmlrpclib.py", line 1591, in __request
    verbose=self.__verbose
  File "C:\Python27\lib\xmlrpclib.py", line 1273, in request
    return self.single_request(host, handler, request_body, verbose)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\xmlrpclib.py", line 1301, in single_request
    self.send_content(h, request_body)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\xmlrpclib.py", line 1448, in send_content
    connection.endheaders(request_body)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\httplib.py", line 997, in endheaders
    self._send_output(message_body)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\httplib.py", line 850, in _send_output
    self.send(msg)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\httplib.py", line 812, in send
    self.connect()
  File "C:\Python27\lib\httplib.py", line 1216, in connect
    server_hostname=server_hostname)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\ssl.py", line 350, in wrap_socket
    _context=self)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\ssl.py", line 566, in __init__
    self.do_handshake()
  File "C:\Python27\lib\ssl.py", line 788, in do_handshake
    self._sslobj.do_handshake()
SSLError: [SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed (_ssl.c:581)

Storing debug log for failure in C:\Users\user\pip\pip.log
PS C:\Users\user>