Certificate lifecycle management refers to the process of managing machine identities, such as TLS certificates, throughout their entire lifecycle, from certificate issuance to provisioning, deployment, discovery, inventory, securing, monitoring, renewal, and revocation. This comprehensive function is critical because the TLS certificates that are used to secure online connections and communications have a limited lifespan. And if they are allowed to expire, they will trigger an outage on the application that they are meant to be protecting. That makes diligent management of TLS certificates throughout
Why is certificate lifecycle management important?
All digital certificates have a finite lifespan and are no longer recognized as valid upon expiration. Certificates may have varying periods of validity and are often set to expire anywhere between one and three years based on the company policy and/or cost considerations. Minimally, certificates need to be replaced at the end of their life to avoid service disruption and decreased security.
If a certificate fails to work properly, the vulnerability can be exploited by malicious actors to launch man-in-the-middle attacks and intercept sensitive information causing an organization unthinkable damage in sales, everyday business and most important in customer confidence and trust. In addition, the organization could be fined for non-compliance with the various legislative regulations, such as GDPR.
Consequently, managing SSL/TLS certificates across complex networks to ensure protection and prevent unanticipated failures is a requirement for all businesses. Employing a lifecycle management system ensures a consistent approach and allows for the use of automation, which increases the efficiency and effectiveness of certificate management.
Stages of the TLS Certificate Lifecycle
1. Certificate enrollment: Certificate enrollment is initiated by a user request to the appropriate CA. This is a cooperative process between a user (or a user’s PKI software, such as an e-mail or Web browser application) and the CA. The enrollment request contains the public key and enrollment information. Once a user requests a certificate, the CA verifies information based on its established policy rules, creates the certificate, posts the certificate, and then sends an identifying certificate to the user. During the certificate distribution, the CA sets policies that affect the use of the certificate.
2. Certificate validation: When a certificate is used, the certificate status is checked to verify that the certificate is still operationally valid. During the validation process, the CA checks the status of the certificate and verifies that the certificate is not its Certificate Revocation List (CRL).
3. Certificate revocation: A certificate issued by a CA includes an expiration date that defines how long the certificate is valid. If a certificate needs to be revoked before that date, the CA can be instructed to add the certificate to its CRL. Reasons a certificate might need to be revoked include the certificate being lost or compromised, or the person the certificate was issued to leaving the company.
4. Certificate renewal: When a certificate reaches its expiration date, and if the certificate policy allows it, it is renewed either automatically, or by user intervention. When renewing a certificate, you must choose whether or not to generate new public and private keys.
5. Certificate destruction: When a certificate is no longer in use, the certificate and any backup copies or archived copies of the certificate should be destroyed, along with the private key associated with the certificate. This helps ensure that the certificate is not compromised and used.
6. Certificate auditing: Certificate auditing involves tracking the creation, expiration, and revocation of certificates. In certain instances, it can also track each successful use of a certificate.
Automation for certificate lifecycle management
As I mentioned before, manual processes are not an effective way of managing certificate lifecycles. Years ago, when organizations only managed hundreds of certificates, manual tactics, such as spreadsheets, might have worked. But in the digital economy, most organizations now must manage the lifecycles of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of machine identities. Automation is the only way control the exponential growth of TLS certificates. In fact, automation is the safety net that ensures that all certificates are validated for proper usage, renewed before disruption-triggering expirations and safe from misuse or compromise.
Learn more about machine identity security, and how it can benefit your organization!
