Understanding and managing certificates effectively is crucial for any organization operating online. At SSL.com, we specialize in providing certificate management solutions that simplify this essential process, ensuring digital communications are secure and service interruptions are minimized.
What is certificate management?
Certificate management has become critically important to securing the modern digital ecosystem. It encompasses the processes and systems for managing digital certificates used for securing communication with servers through web browsers, authenticating client devices and securing email communication among other use cases. Neglecting proper certificate lifecycle management frequently leads to compromises such as:
- Security breaches from expired or insecure certificates
- Transaction outages interrupting customer activities
- Non-compliance implications from preventable audit findings
Effectively issuing, renewing, and revoking certificates enables organizations to reduce risks, prevent business disruption, and maintain regulatory compliance.
Key Elements of Certificate Management
Building comprehensive certificate lifecycle management rests on core capabilities across four key areas: procurement, lifecycle automation, storage & recovery, and ongoing status monitoring.
Certificate Procurement
- Certificate Validation Classes: Validating identity with higher assurance certificates like Organization Validated (OV) SSL and Extended Validation (EV) builds more trust and confidence in the security of transactions, data exchange, and site legitimacy than simple domain-validated (DV) certificates. However, a DV SSL certificate lifecycle is the easiest to automate.
- Infrastructure Compatibility: Support for all internal server types, operating systems, browsers, and mobile devices using certificates is crucial for universal encryption across technologies.
- Compliance Standards: Certificates like EV SSL may be required to meet regulatory mandates around data protection and privacy in sectors like healthcare or finance. Using certificates aligned with industry standards facilitates compliance.
Certificate Lifecycle Automation
The most significant liability around certificates lies in the cumbersome tracking and upkeep required over their lifespan. Automating processes reduces administrative burdens and human errors that lead to oversights and outages.
- Discovery & Inventory: Discovering certificates across all servers, devices, and systems provides complete organizational visibility, while centralized reporting supplies certificate details for planning and auditing needs.
- Issuance & Renewal: Activating bulk enrollment and renewal procedures through automated expiration reminders, stored validated identities and automated issuance, prevents certificate or PKI-related outages.
- Monitoring & Revocation: Real-time health dashboards flag compromised or vulnerable certificates, prompting immediate revocation to prevent exploitation.
Certificate Storage & Recovery
While certificate information is generally public, the associated private keys require secure storage to prevent unauthorized access and potential security breaches. However, securing private keys should never impede authorized access or recovery under adverse events. Adequate measures for private key security include:
- Encrypted Certificate Repositories: Restricting access to authorized systems without compromising availability safeguards certificate integrity.
- Redundant Private Key Backups: Backing private keys using FIPS-validated hardware security modules facilitates restoration while upholding strict security protocols.
- Offline & Escrowed Certificates: Keeping unused and archived certificates offline or escrowed externally protects them from attacks or internal compromise, helps meet regulatory compliance, and provides better disaster recovery.
Ongoing Certificate Status Monitoring
The brief validity period of certificates requires ongoing monitoring via centralized dashboards to ensure that they are valid and up to date. Real-time insights enable teams to respond quickly to emerging risks, while comprehensive tracking ensures accountability.
- Certificate Health Dashboards: Unified views detailing certificate statuses across infrastructure help quickly identify compromised or outdated certificates that need replacement.
- Certificate Modification Audit Trails: Extensive traceability of all certificate changes satisfies auditors and optimizes troubleshooting efforts.
- Proactive Certificate Alerting: Configurable notifications on expirations and detected problems trigger renewal workflows and prevent potential issues through event-driven automation.
Continuous monitoring combined with infrastructure integration sustains secure and highly available services.
SSL.com’s Integrated Solutions
SSL.com makes sophisticated certificate lifecycle management achievable through our purpose-built management platform, specialized integration solutions and dedicated support.
The SSL.com Portal
SSL.com portal is your centralized hub for managing all SSL.com product purchases and certificate lifecycle management.
SSL.com Portal Key Features and Tools:
- Ordering: Easily manage orders for SSL/TLS certificates through a streamlined process.
- Certificate request generation and submission: Generate Certificate Signing Requests (CSRs) with the provided CSR generation tool and submit CSRs directly through the portal for quick processing.
- Submission of Validation Requirements: Our portal simplifies the certificate issuance process by providing a straightforward platform for submitting all necessary documents and information for validation.
- Certificate issuance: When obtaining SSL/TLS certificates after validation, they are typically available in several formats:
- PEM (Privacy Enhanced Mail)
- DER (Distinguished Encoding Rules)
- PKCS#7 or P7B
- PKCS#12 or PFX
- X.509
- CER
- CRT
- Renewal: SSL.com offers an efficient auto-renewal tool that simplifies this process and ensures you no longer need to manually track expiration dates.
- Revocation: Revoke certificates as needed to maintain control over your secure environment and react to any incidences or misuse of the certificates.
- Domain management: SSL.com simplifies domain management with pre-validated domains and a robust domain manager.
- Team Creation and Role Assignment: With the Teams feature, you can efficiently manage role-based access control by assigning specific roles to team members with only necessary privileges.
- ACME Support: Our customers can utilize the ACME (Automated Certificate Management Environment) protocol to efficiently automate the certificate lifecycle of SSL/TLS certificates.
- SSL/TLS Certificate Health Check Monitoring (HCM): Our Health Check Monitoring tool offers an immediate analysis of your website’s SSL/TLS certificate setup.
- Bulk Ordering for S/MIME and NAESB Certificates: Our bulk order tool facilitates the easy procurement of S/MIME and NAESB clientAuth certificates in large quantities.
- LDAP Integration for S/MIME Certificates: LDAP is the industry standard protocol for managing directory information.
- Microsoft Intune Integration: The Microsoft Intune SSL.com portal integration streamlines the implementation of S/MIME certificates across various devices, enhancing email security through encryption and digital signatures.
SSL Manager – Management Platform
This is a Windows desktop application that serves as our proprietary certificate management platform. It consolidates procurement, automation, storage, and monitoring into a centralized solution, improving visibility while saving vast administrative efforts.
Professional Services and Integration Support
Our experts act as an extension of your team – either fully handling procurement, administration, and operations or advising your technical staff on recommended best practices.
Discover Certificate Lifecycle Peace of Mind
Managing SSL/TLS certificates is a complex but critical task that SSL.com makes easier with our comprehensive solutions. From choosing the right certificate to ensuring its secure storage and timely renewal, our platform and services are designed to keep your online operations secure and compliant.