Blog Post Sep 05, 2024

The impact of 90-day SSL certificates on enterprise security

SSL/TLS certificates are vital for enterprise cybersecurity, providing encryption and authentication. Proper management throughout their lifecycle is crucial, especially with the upcoming 90-day validity periods that reduce risk exposure and encourage better practices.

1. The important role of SSL certificate management for enterprise cybersecurity

2. The shift to 90-day SSL certificates and its implications

3. The challenges enterprises will face with 90-day validity periods

4. Best practices to improve enterprise security posture when managing 90-day SSL certificates

5. Ensure your enterprise is prepared with Sectigo

Secure Socket Layer (SSL) / Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificates play a huge role in shaping enterprise cybersecurity by limiting the potential for data to be intercepted by bad actors. These digital certificates utilize pairs of cryptographic keys to cover two security essentials: encryption and authentication.

Though SSL certificates enhance everything from cybersecurity to compliance, there is a caveat: digital certificates must be properly managed throughout their full lifecycle, including discovery, request, issuance, monitoring, renewal, and sometimes revocation. Gaps in coverage can leave enterprises at risk,especially with the introduction of 90-day validity periods coming soon. However, these shorter lifespans are also beneficial because they reduce the window of exposure in case a certificate is compromised and also encourage better certificate management practices.

The important role of SSL certificate management for enterprise cybersecurity

SSL/TLS certificates help address today's most pressing cybersecurity concerns — but only if they are properly implemented and managed. Key challenges posed by the effort to manage these certificates (especially in an enterprise environment) include:

Large volumes of digital certificates to manage. It is far from unusual for enterprises to manage thousands of SSL certificates. These may span a multitude of domains, subdomains, and use cases. This expanded reach can make it incredibly difficult to deal with expired certificates and renewals, especially when manual processes are involved.
Cross-department coordination. While it's no secret that certificate management strategies hold huge implications for IT, this is just one of many teams or departments to deal with digital certificates. Legal teams and risk management professionals may need to sort through compliance concerns, while operations experts ensure that SSL certificates are properly integrated into transaction platforms and other systems.
Compliance and auditing. Information security standards such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) call for high-level encryption. Implementing a comprehensive and reliable SSL/TLS management solution can help achieve this.
Third-party integration. Today's enterprises rely on a myriad of tools and solutions to streamline complex tasks. Without the right integrations, these systems cannot work cohesively.. To avoid such issues, the ideal automated certificate lifecycle management (CLM) solution will provide a sizable list of integrations, complete with cloud platforms, DevOps tools, enterprise mobility management (EMM), and more.

The shift to 90-day SSL certificates and its implications

While managing SSL certificates may seem complex now, this task is expected to become even more challenging in the near future. Google has made it abundantly clear that 90-day certificate lifespans will be the new norm. This could actually prove quite beneficial in the long run, as this 90-day validity period promises many advantages:

Strengthened security

Compromised certificates are always a possibility, but these pose less of a risk when lifespans remain short. This limits the amount of time in which attacks are capable of exploiting certificates while also promoting better key management to drive long-term improvements in cybersecurity.

Increased agility in responding to security threats

Today's bad actors are more sophisticated than ever, and, while a layered approach can help combat their most malicious pursuits, swift responses are essential. Shorter certificate lifespans facilitate crypto agility by promoting frequent key rotations (often handled via automated solutions) and driving easier transitions to alternative algorithms. This means that they are better poised to respond to emerging threats. Also important: streamlining essential processes such as revocation and re-issuance.

Strong security culture within enterprises

No one cybersecurity strategy can promise to keep attackers out of the picture, but a comprehensive set of solutions can certainly help. This needs to extend beyond the technologies themselves, however, to encompass a culture of security, in which all employees and stakeholders recognize that they have a powerful role to play in keeping enterprises safe and secure.

The switch to 90-day validity periods and the process changes that must come along with it will help strengthen this culture by fostering greater awareness and accountability regarding digital security. With certificates expiring more frequently, enterprises will need to adopt more proactive certificate lifecycle management practices and ensure that all team members involved in certificate management are well-trained.

The challenges enterprises will face with 90-day validity periods

While 90-day lifespans can be valuable, they may also prompt significant challenges, ranging from financial issues to administrative concerns. These must be addressed early on to ensure that enterprises can leverage the advantages of shorter lifespans without suffering new security concerns or cost-related burdens.

Operational challenges

The need for frequent certificate renewals creates a clear administrative burden, potentially forcing IT professionals to spend more time tracking and renewing certificates than would be required with the status quo lifespan of 398 days. These problems can escalate further if IT departments fail to keep up with evolving certificate needs, with outages more likely if certificates are allowed to expire.

Security risks

Handled strategically, 90-day certificate lifespans can provide a net gain for the big picture of enterprise security. Unfortunately, many businesses struggle to live up to these heightened demands and, as a result, may actually see greater security risks than were present with 398-day lifespans.

When certificates need to be renewed more often, human error becomes more of a risk — especially when overburdened IT departments remain dependent on outdated manual practices. Without proper management, rapid certificate turnover could also expand enterprises' attack surfaces, leaving more opportunities for bad actors to exploit weaknesses.

Cost implications

Certificate management always calls for an investment, but this could increase substantially if there's a need for new SSL certificates every 90 days. Costs will be especially high for enterprises that rely on manual processes, as frequent renewals spark higher labor expenses. Of course, the cost of failing to keep up can also be quite high, as outages can prompt reputational damage and a whole host of other problems that can damage any enterprise's bottom line in the long run.

Fortunately, all of these challenges can be avoided by implementing an automated certificate lifecycle management platform.

Best practices to improve enterprise security posture when managing 90-day SSL certificates

Like it or not, 90-day validity periods for SSL certificates are coming. When they do, previous efforts to adopt an agile, automated approach will make a world of difference.

With automated systems in place, many enterprises will mitigate outages and administrative concerns.

Businesses that stick with the digital certificate status quo, however, will struggle. This shift in mindset takes time, so it's best to start planning for — and implementing — relevant strategies as soon as possible. Essentials to keep in mind include:

Automating SSL certificate management

Manual processes have never been ideal from a certificate management standpoint, but their deficiencies will be abundantly clear when 90-day lifespans take over.

As we've discussed, already struggling IT departments will need to dedicate far more time and attention to renewing certificates, and, as a result, will risk making mistakes that leave enterprises to outages, and potential loss of revenue. Automated CLM systems can limit this burden, addressing the most time-consuming aspects of certificate management while freeing up IT professionals to focus on other important pursuits.

Aligning SSL management with overall security policies

Certificate lifecycle management should not exist in a vacuum. This needs to be purposefully built into comprehensive security policies, which should address the many potential sources of security problems. SSL/TLS certificates must be clearly detailed within these security policies, which should also reveal how digital certificates will protect data in transit.

Policies should outline security requirements such as encryption protocol standards. Furthermore, SSL/TLS concerns should occupy a prominent space within risk assessment processes and incident response plans.

Training and awareness

To drive the much-needed culture of security, enterprises should offer ongoing cybersecurity training. This will help employees recognize how digital certificates safeguard sensitive data. Employees should easily recognize and identify secure sites — and they should pinpoint and avoid phishing scams. Ongoing training will keep these concepts and skills fresh so that employees are in the know by the time that 90-day certificate validity periods arrive.

Ensure your enterprise is prepared with Sectigo

With 90-day certificate lifespans approaching, it is more important than ever to adopt agile solutions that streamline certificate management. Automation is now becoming a necessity, as it reduces operational burdens and also helps enterprises avoid potentially devastating outages.

Sectigo Certificate Manager is an enterprise certificate lifecycle management platform that is designed to proactively address the SSL challenges of tomorrow. Schedule a demo today to learn how this CA-agnostic platform works — or take the next step and start a free trial.