What Google Is Proposing – Reduce SSL Certificate Lifetime
It’s a bold step in a long-term effort to increase security on the internet, and a sizable change in terms of banning long-expiring certificates, ditching the current limit of 398 days for public TLS (SSL) certificates. If adopted, this proposed change could impact website owners and security professionals alike.
Why the Change?
This proposal is primarily driven by the need to increase internet security. Thus shorter SSL certificate validity period can:
Mitigate the Consequences of a Compromised Certificate: Having a shorter lifespan makes it less likely for attackers to use a compromised certificate successfully.
Promote The Rapid Take Up of New Security Standards: Certificate renewals will happen more often, incentivizing organizations to move to the latest encryption standards and security practices.
Solidify Internet Security – All users, whether individuals or massive companies, will experience a more secure internet.
There are implications of this for organizations.
Organizations now need to work with their SSL certificate management processes that transform to 90-day SSL certificates. The following are some key implications:
More Cert Renewals = More Admin Overhead: Frequent renewals will require additional administrative effort to create and manage certificate signing requests (CSRs), deploy the certificates and monitor expiration dates.
Automated Certificate Management | The Need of the Hour: To remove these manual hassles and reduce human errors, organizations must adopt automated certificate management solutinos.
Risk of downtime: not renew the required certificates within enough time and have the website go down momentarily or services disrupted.
Preparing for the 90-Day Era
In preparation for these changes ahead, organizations should:
Review your current certificate management process: Evaluate your current process and look for areas that can be improved or automated.
Use Automated Certificate Management Tools: Consider tools that allow automated certificate issuance, renewal, and deployment.
Create a Strong Incident Response Plan: Have a plan to respond to possible security incidents such as a compromise of a certificate.
Stay Updated: Follow the news and recent trends in the industry for SSL certificate management.
With the ability to address these challenges preemptively, organizations can adapt to the 90-day SSL certificate era in a seamless manner while keeping a robust security posture.
