Shorter certificate lifespans are here, and the future of your organization’s operational resilience depends on how you and your team adapt. Managing TLS certificates has long been a crucial aspect of maintaining cybersecurity – but with the shift to 90-day certificate validity, the stakes are getting higher.
Tunde Oni-Daniel, Head of Technology Operations and Engineering at OneMain Financial, tackled this pressing issue in his session, “Why Automation is Critical for Managing 90-Day Certificates,” at the Machine Identity Security Summit. He outlined the growing complexities of machine identity management and how automation is the ultimate solution.
Let’s dive into the key challenges, the impact of 90-day certificate lifespans, and the steps Tunde outlines for organizations to take to use automation effectively.
Why Certificate Management is More Complex Than Ever
Managing certificates is like managing a precarious Jenga tower. With every new system, microservice, or API, you’re adding another block. If just one expires without warning, it’s game over – systems fail, services go dark, and people take notice. The complexity is growing, and with it comes new challenges:
- Operational risks: Certificate expirations are digital ticking time bombs. Expired certificates can lead to system outages, failed transactions, and loss of public trust. Most critically, disrupted service availability causes significant downtime.
- Modern IT stack complexity: Today’s IT environments are a complex blend of on-prem mainframes, cloud platforms, containerized applications, and microservices. Each component may require its own TLS certificates, creating a web of interdependencies across thousands of endpoints./.
- Human oversight and error: Manually managing certificates may have been possible a decade ago, but no longer. Human errors, such as missed expiring certificates or misconfigurations, become more common (and costly). Gartner estimates 90% of certificate-related outages are due to manual errors.
90-Day Certificates: Why Things Are About to Get Harder
The industry’s move towards 90-day certificate lifespans has amplified these challenges. While shorter lifespans reduce the risk of compromised keys, they also require more frequent rotations than already-stretched operations teams can handle manually.
Instead of annual rotations, certificates will need to be rotated four times a year. There are also external dependencies to consider. From third-party APIs to vendor integrations, external components introduce complexity. A misstep here can ripple across your entire network ecosystem. Simply put, traditional approaches just can’t keep up.
Why Automation Is the Game-Changer
Automation brings the resilience, efficiency, and security essential for mitigating risks as certificate lifespans get shorter and shorter. How?
- Resilience through consistency: With automation, human errors are a thing of the past. When processes – like certificate renewals – are automated, they execute uniformly and promptly every time, eliminating outages caused by neglected expirations.
- Scaling efficiency: Manually managing even 1,000 certificates is daunting, let alone hundreds of thousands! Automation ensures that processes scale effortlessly, freeing your team from repetitive tasks to focus on strategic initiatives.
- Enhanced security: Automation does more than make your life easier (although it does so spectacularly well). By integrating security checks in CI/CD pipelines, automation guarantees compliance with organizational and regulatory standards without creating bottlenecks for developers.
- Improved visibility: One-off spreadsheets simply won’t cut it anymore. Automation enhances visibility across your entire network inventory, which means nothing will slip through the cracks (including certificates tied to third-parties and external services)!
4 Steps Automated Certificate Management
After establishing the “why” of shorter certificate lifespans and implementing automation, Tunde Oni-Daniel outlined a step-by-step approach to successfully implementing automation in your organization:
Step 1: Document and Validate Manual Processes
Before automating, you need a clear understanding of your current workflows to create a baseline. Document your manual processes, test them thoroughly, and get feedback from peers. Only well-understood and validated processes should be candidates for automation!
Step 2: Take an Iterative Approach
Jumping into full-scale automation isn’t the right move. Start small by automating the low-hanging fruit, such as certificate tracking or simple renewals. Once those processes are stable, move on to more complex tasks.
Step 3: Don’t Forget Root and Intermediate Certificates
Leaf certificates might get all the attention, but don’t forget that root and intermediate certificates are the foundation of trust in your ecosystem! Ensure they are inventories, automated, and updated regularly to avoid potential vulnerabilities.
Step 4: Embed Security into Pipelines
Security should never slow down productivity. Embed certificate management policies within your CI/CD pipelines to ensure compliance while maintaining rapid release cycles.
How to Get Started with TLS Certificate Automation
Tunde Oni-Daniel made one thing clear in his session: automation is more than a technical necessity, it’s a strategic imperative! The transition to 90-day certificates is challenging, but it’s also an opportunity for organizations to modernize their operations to gain a competitive edge.
Automation simplifies complexity, reduces risk, and frees your team to focus on what truly matters – driving efficiency, delivering results, and improving customer experiences.
Want to learn more? View Tunde Oni-Daniel’s full session to discover actionable strategies for implementing automation in your organization.
