diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index ae22c8169610c..fa98ad496afda 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -449,7 +449,7 @@ endif
 ifeq ($(OS), Linux)
 	-$(JULIAHOME)/contrib/fixup-libstdc++.sh $(DESTDIR)$(private_libdir)
 	# We need to bundle ca certs on linux now that we're using libgit2 with ssl
-ifneq ($(shell cat $(shell openssl version -d | cut -d '"' -f 2)/cert.pem),)
+ifeq ($(shell [ -e $(shell openssl version -d | cut -d '"' -f 2)/cert.pem ] && echo exists),exists)
 	-cp $(shell openssl version -d | cut -d '"' -f 2)/cert.pem $(DESTDIR)$(datarootdir)/julia/
 endif
 endif