Impact of Reduced Validity of SSL Certificate: How Switching to CMS Through Indusface Is Helping Clients?

The SSL certificate validity period was reduced from 8-10 years in 2011. It was reduced to 3 years in 2015 and 2 years in 2018.  Last year (September 2020 onwards), the validity has been further reduced to 398 days (1 year plus one grace month). However, the reduction of the SSL certificates’ validity period has some major implications for businesses.

Read on to know more about the implications resulting from the reduced validity of SSL certificates. We will also delve into how the SSL Certificate Management System from Indusface enables you to overcome the challenges.

Why Has the Validity of SSL Certificates Been Reduced?

Businesses and web applications are in a constant state of flux. Given the growing dynamism, complexity, and competitiveness of the markets and the business world, businesses may go through major changes within 1-2 years. This could range from changes in the products and services to management shuffles and employee mobility to mergers and acquisitions.

Accordingly, websites and web applications continuously evolve. The website domain may shift. Also, there are several moving parts and third-party components. Given this context, long validity periods of SSL certificates are detrimental to security and business continuity itself.

For instance, the website may move to a different domain while the old domain with a valid SSL certificate is still active. Attackers may develop their own website using such a domain and collect data from unsuspecting victims.

Longer validity deters the required agility and speed in making updates and changes to the algorithms and websites. It also deters businesses from making changes required to meet the fast-evolving compliance standards.

Further, for every identity protected by SSL, some information is collected and used to validate the identity. With longer validity periods, the question that arises is ‘can such information be trusted such a long-time duration?’. The longer the time between validation, the higher the risks attached.

Benefits of Shortening the SSL Certificates’ Validity Period

• A one-year validity period ensures more robust data protection and web security. This is because new security keys will keep getting generated, reducing the risks of data exfiltration.
• It is easier to roll out new algorithms and changes to the application.
• Older, outdated, and vulnerable SSL certificates can be quickly removed.
• The gray areas in the attack surface can be reduced.
• It is easier to adapt and keep pace with the changing industry standards and compliance frameworks.

How Does the Reduced SSL Certificate Validity Impact Businesses?

The reduced validity of certificates does not impact the current certificates (those issued before September 2020). If you are getting an SSL certificate on or after September 1, 2020, you will have to renew your certificates every year.

Businesses require a massive number of certificates for different aspects of web architecture and purposes. In fact, hundreds and thousands of certificates are necessary. Given this context, the reduced validity would significantly increase the challenges for IT security teams and web admins. They must closely monitor, manage, order, and remove SSL certificates to ensure the highest standard of safety. Even one expired certificate can cost a fortune to businesses, financially and reputationally.

SSL Certificate Management System: How Does Indusface Help Businesses?

The high number of variables involved in managing SSL certificates further multiplies the complexity of the certificate lifecycle management process. Effective manual management of certificates in such a scenario is close to impossible. To effectively manage and monitor the scaling repository certificates, tools such as Spreadsheets are only time-consuming and wasteful.

This is where automated tools and advanced Certificate Management Systems like Entrust come in handy. Entrust Certificate Management System (CMS) offered by Indusface simplifies the administration of digital certificates, making it hassle-free, agile, and efficient. It provides full visibility into your scaling repository of certificates through a single unified platform. It reduces the time, effort, and hassle costs for site administrators and IT security teams.

Most tasks such as renewals, revoking, reissues, and reporting are automated. Unlimited server licensing and re-issues are offered. Using the Certificate Recycling Feature, clients can effortlessly redistribute SSL certificates (within the validity period) where needed.

Entrust CMS empowers businesses to meet the certificate validity period best practices effortlessly. By running TLS server tests and crypto agility scans, it enables clients to continuously tune their server configurations. Apart from reporting low scores to clients, Entrust CMS also sends alerts to clients in case of a breach of policy, compliance, or best practices.

The unique feature of Entrust CMS which attracts most businesses is its flexibility to build up as well as tear down the SSL certificate subscription plan. Even though the certificate validity is truncated to enhance the security, still going for longer validity with Entrust CMS (pre-paying account option) can save you the cost.

This budget-friendly plan comes with a validity of up to 4 years and you can choose validity from 1, 2, 3 and 4 years based on your needs and avail of the term discounts.

With this Subscription-based Model, you can add the new inventory on pro-rated pricing basis and renew subsequently all inventory upon the CMS Expiry. This gives organization the benefit of raising one PO instead of going through the pain points of raising PO’s and approvals for each SSL renewal.

Further, Entrust CMS extends 24×7 support to clients over the phone, email, and web chat tools. The experienced team of Indusface security professionals extends their expertise and support in creating the best solution for the client and thereon, installing and managing the certificates using the CMS.

Conclusion

SSL certificates are critical to website and data security in today’s day and age. To strengthen the level of security they provide, the validity of SSL certificates has been reduced to mere 13 months since September 2020. This has major implications on certificate lifecycle management.

By onboarding an advanced CMS solution like Entrust from Indusface, you can effortlessly face the challenges posed by the reduced validity and secure all your digital communications effectively.

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