Manual vs Automated SSL Certificate Management

On February 3, 2020, Microsoft Teams suffered a major outage caused by an expired SSL certificate, temporarily preventing 20 million daily users from accessing the platform.

Secure and consistent digital communications are important for every organization. Whether you’re running an e‐commerce site, managing enterprise applications, or protecting IoT devices, the proper management of SSL/TLS certificates is non‐negotiable.

Where the traditional manual method of managing digital certificates has limitations, where it is managed by a guy with an Excel sheet, any small mistake, and your users are facing service outage.

This can cause reputation and credibility loss to the organization. Manual digital certificate management is ok when the size of the business or organisation is small or has to manage small numbers of certificates.

Also Read: Shorter SSL/TLS Certificate Lifespans: What you need to Know about?

But when we are dealing with large numbers of digital certificates in the case of a medium or large size enterprise, we have to think of a better approach as the number of certificates to manage increases, the chances of human error increase if we follow a manual approach.

In this blog post, we are going to see manual vs automated SSL certificate management.

Importance of SSL Certificates

SSL/TLS certificates serve a very important role in digital communication, as they validate the identity of your web servers and encrypt data exchanged with clients. They are essential for maintaining user trust and protecting sensitive information.

The web browsers trust certificates only when they are issued by reputable Certificate Authorities (CAs) and are valid within a specific time period.

The certificates expire after a fixed period to help ensure that outdated encryption is not used and that compromised keys can’t be misused further.

Why Certificates Have a Shorter Lifespans?

The cybersecurity industry is actively discussing the reduction of TLS/SSL certificate lifespans, with Apple proposing a decrease from 398 days to just 45 by 2027. The primary objective of this change is to encourage automation. Apple isn’t alone in this effort, Google suggested a 90-day certificate validity period in early 2023.

Reducing certificate lifespans improves security by ensuring more frequent encryption key rotations, limiting the exposure of compromised certificates, and reducing the risk of long term vulnerabilities.

By reducing the time for attackers to exploit a compromised certificate, this approach improves trust in secure communications.

Important: SSL/TLS Certificate Lifespans Reduced To 47 Days By 2029 [CA/B Approved]

Adopting a shorter lifespan certificate has its own challenges. The organization depends on manual certificate management, which increases the risk of an expired certificate, increases complexity, increases the chances of human error and is hard to manage compliance.

What is Manual Certificate Management?

Manual certificates management is the traditional way to manage digital certificates. In this method, the certificate is managed fully manually by humans. Here, spreadsheets are used to manage these certificates.

This approach is fine for the small business and the organization, where they have to manage (renewed, installed, revoked, and circulated) only a limited number of certificates.

But in the case of a growing and large businesses, where thousands of applications are distributed over multiple geographical locations, and the total number of certificates installed on different endpoints may range well into the hundreds of thousands. In that case, Manual certificate management is a nightmare.

Below are the top challenges of Manual Certificate Management:

Challenges of The Manual Certificate Management

It’s Time Consuming

In normal sized deployments, tracking certificate lifecycles using spreadsheets can result in thousands of rows. Despite the efficiency of spreadsheet management, the manual process remains highly time consuming.

More Chances of Human Error

There are very high chances of getting human error if the large number of certificates is managed by a traditional manual method. This error can lead to service disruption, and the users facing a bad experience, which downgrades the brand reputation and credibility.

Sorting is Inefficient

Managing certificates manually requires careful organization to prevent confusion. They must be sorted based on factors such as application importance and certificate validity, considering the date and time formats of different Certificate Authorities (CAs).

After sorting, email reminders must be set up for renewal or revocation, followed by verification with the CA to ensure the request’s accuracy.

Once a certificate is issued, it needs to be installed on the respective application or device and tested for proper functionality. Given the potential for human error, this entire process can take hours or even days for a single batch of certificates.

It Takes Significant Manpower

Managing certificate renewal and installation can take anywhere from ten days to a month. When multiplied by the number of active certificates, this creates a significant challenge for most teams, which often lack the capacity to handle such large-scale tasks repeatedly.

With shorter certificate lifespans, the workload has only increased. Even dedicated teams managing the certificate lifecycle manually may still face the risk of missed renewals due to unexpected expirations.

Scalability

As organizations grow and the number of domains, subdomains, and IoT devices increases, manual certificate management becomes unsustainable. Handling thousands of certificates manually is not only impractical but also increases the risk of errors that can compromise security and service availability.

What is Automated Certificate Management?

The solution for the above problem is that the company has to migrate to a better alternative solution called the Automated certificate management that automates the entire certificate lifecycle.

It is the process of managing digital certificate lifecycles automatically and maintaining the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) in your organization. This system automatically issues certificates for newly added users or devices, revokes compromised certificates, and monitors expiration dates.

It also sends renewal reminders and provides recommendations to ensure continuous security.

Features of Automated Certificate Management

Automated Renewal

Automated certificate management systems seamlessly renew expiring digital certificates, minimizing downtime and ensuring continuous security and service availability for users and customers.

Easy Management

Automated Certificate Management (ACM) provides a centralized platform that enables you to manage certificates from a single place. With that centralized server you can achieve visibility, making it easier to detect problems, control access permissions, and make informed security and compliance decisions.

Policy Enforcement

ACME ensures compliance with data protection and identity management policies by enforcing access controls, automating certificate revocation, and providing alerts for non-compliance.

Benefits of Automated Certificate Management

Certificates are necessary at every stage of application development, testing, and deployment. Any delays in their issuance can disrupt subsequent processes.

A centralized and automated certificate management system provides several key benefits:

Cost Savings

Implementing certificate automation can significantly reduce expenses for your organization. Manual certificate management consumes valuable employee time on repetitive tasks that offer little business value.

With automation, there’s no need to expand your IT team to oversee certificate lifecycles. Additionally, automation contributes to indirect cost savings by integrating security features such as proactive threat detection and monitoring within IAM solutions, ultimately lowering cybersecurity expenses.

Prevent Outage

An expired certificate can cause prolonged website downtime, negatively impacting user experience and harming your company’s reputation and trustworthiness.

Automated certificate management ensures all certificates remain valid and secure, preventing service disruptions and maintaining seamless availability.

Tracking

Overseeing the entire lifecycle of digital certificates is essential but complex. With numerous certificates distributed across an organization, manually tracking expiration dates can be challenging.

Automating certificate expiry tracking enables proactive renewals, reducing the risk of website failures and service downtime due to expired certificates.

Security

Certificate automation solutions are designed with security as a core priority. They include proactive threat monitoring and incident response, allowing for preventive measures.

Compromised certificates are identified and revoked in real time, minimizing potential risks and preventing further harm to the network.

Scalability

Certificate automation solutions are highly scalable, adapting seamlessly to growing certificate management demands. Regardless of how many users or devices are added to your network, these platforms can efficiently accommodate them without hassle.

Conclusion

Let’s be real nobody wants to be the next Microsoft Teams, facing global outrage over a missed certificate renewal. The truth? Manual SSL certificate management might work for now, but as your organization scales, the cracks will show.

Expired certs, downtime, compliance nightmares all of it can snowball into lost revenue and lost trust. But here’s the good news: automation doesn’t just solve the problem it future-proofs your business.

Contact us today for expert consulting on SSL certificate issues and SSL management.

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