TLS/SSL certificates are a digital credential that encrypts communication between a server and a user's browser and verifies the server's identity. It is what enables HTTPS and the padlock icon in browser address bars.
Most internet users never think about TLS/SSL certificates until something breaks. These digital credentials operate silently in the background, encrypting communications, authenticating servers, and establishing the chain of trust that makes online banking, e-commerce, and enterprise software work. But a major industry shift is about to force organizations of all sizes to rethink how they manage them.
As our Robert Preskar, Director of Security and Card Payment Product Development, explains:
"TLS/SSL certificates are the digital 'identity documents' of websites and online services. They encrypt communication, protect data, and verify system identity. Without them, browsers display warnings, applications refuse to connect, and integrations stop working. In short, they are the foundation of trust on the internet."
Industry standards and major browser vendors are reducing the maximum validity period of TLS/SSL certificates from 398 days to just 47 days. This is not a distant roadmap item, it is an active transition already underway across the industry.
On the surface, this may sound like a minor technical adjustment. In practice, it fundamentally transforms certificate management from an annual administrative task into a continuous operational process.
Organizations with the highest exposure to certificate-related incidents include:
Certificate expiration is one of the most preventable, yet most common, causes of IT incidents. When a TLS/SSL certificate expires without being renewed, the consequences are immediate and cascading:
"What most commonly happens when a certificate expires is service unavailability. It immediately becomes an incident, users cannot access the service, the IT team gets urgent calls, and the company suffers reputational damage. In some cases, there is also direct financial loss because, for example, transactions cannot be processed.", says Preskar.
For years, many organizations have tracked certificate expiration dates in spreadsheets or relied on calendar reminders and email notifications. This approach was imperfect but functional when renewals happened once a year. At 7–8 renewals per certificate per year, it becomes operationally unsustainable.
"Until now, this process relied on manual records because organizations wanted to maintain control. But at this renewal frequency, it is simply no longer feasible. The risk of human error becomes too high.", warns Preskar.
| Scenario | Certificates | Old Model (398 days) | New Model (47 days) |
| Small organization | 20 | ~20 renewals/year | ~160 renewals/year |
| Mid-size organization | 100 | ~100 renewals/year | ~800 renewals/year |
| Large enterprise | 500+ | ~500 renewals/year | ~4,000+ renewals/year |
At enterprise scale, manual certificate management is not just inefficient — it is a liability.
Before addressing the automation challenge, it helps to understand how a well-structured certificate infrastructure is built. A Certificate Management System (CMS) is the centralized repository layer — the operational hub where certificates are issued, renewed, and revoked across all endpoints in an organization.
ASEE's CMS is designed to handle the full breadth of modern certificate environments:
In short, CMS answers the question: "Where are all our certificates, and how do we issue and control them?"
CMS provides the infrastructure and control layer. Certiligent addresses what happens at the operational level when certificate validity periods shrink to 47 days and renewal frequency multiplies by a factor of eight.
Where CMS manages the what and who of certificates, Certiligent manages the when and how of keeping them continuously valid without manual intervention.
Together, CMS and Certiligent form a complete certificate management stack: CMS as the trusted issuance and control foundation, Certiligent as the automation layer that ensures no certificate ever expires unnoticed.
"Certiligent enables you to monitor all certificates from a single location and define renewal policies. The renewal process happens automatically, and if anything goes wrong, the system notifies you in advance, before the certificate expires." explains Preskar.
Based on operational experience with organizations that have implemented automated certificate management, the documented benefits include:
"From experience, we can say that organizations that implement automated certificate management have drastically fewer incidents, less stress and fewer night-time interventions, and significant time and cost savings. In addition, security posture improves and audits become easier to pass." states Preskar.
One of the most significant operational advantages of automation is that certificate volume growth no longer requires proportional headcount growth. Whether an organization adds 10 or 1,000 new certificates, the management overhead remains essentially constant.
"IT can finally return to strategic tasks, instead of constantly firefighting." says Preskar.
The shortening of TLS/SSL certificate validity periods from 398 to 47 days is not a future concern, it is an active operational challenge that organizations need to address today. The volume of renewals required under the new model makes manual management not just inefficient, but fundamentally unreliable.
As Preskar concludes: "The shortening of certificate validity is not just a technical change, it is an organizational, operational, and security change. Automation is no longer a 'nice to have.' It is a prerequisite for normal operations."
This article is based on expert commentary originally published in Poslovni.hr on March 25, 2026. Read the original article (Croatian) →
Frequently Asked Questions About TLS/SSL Certificate Management
