SSL/TLS Certificates

Management involves maintaining a centralized inventory of all certificates, implementing automated issuance and renewal to prevent expiration, and regularly scanning endpoints to confirm the correct certificate chain and TLS configuration are in place. WatchDog Security can support this by using Asset Inventory to map domains and services, and Posture Management to identify weak TLS settings or unknown internet-facing endpoints that may not be covered by your inventory.

Valid certificates must be issued by a trusted certificate authority, contain accurate domain information (Subject Alternative Name), use strong signature algorithms (SHA-256 or higher), and fall within valid start and end dates.

Public TLS certificates commonly have maximum validity up to ~398 days (varies by CA policy). Many organizations adopt automated renewals on shorter cycles (e.g., every 60–90 days) to reduce operational risk and limit exposure if keys are compromised.

Certificates should support tls encryption utilizing modern protocols (TLS 1.2 or 1.3) and strong cipher suites (e.g., AES-GCM or ChaCha20-Poly1305), while weak protocols like SSLv3, TLS 1.0, and TLS 1.1 should be disabled to ensure secure certificate usage.

Organizations should use automated monitoring tools that regularly check endpoint certificates and chains, sending alerts well in advance of expiration to maintain continuous ssl compliance. Optionally, certificate transparency logs can be monitored to detect unexpected certificate issuance. WatchDog Security can help operationalize this by tracking certificate evidence and ownership in Compliance Center, while Posture Management highlights configuration drift that can break trust even when a certificate is still valid.

A certificate authority acts as a trusted third party that validates the identity of the organization requesting the certificate, thereby establishing the trust necessary for secure encrypted connections.

Procedures should be documented in an encryption or cryptographic key management policy, detailing the steps for issuance, renewal, revocation, and the remediation of compromised digital certificate keys. WatchDog Security can streamline this by maintaining the procedure in Policy Management with version control and approvals, and by linking the procedure to audit-ready evidence in Compliance Center.

Expired or invalid certificates break the chain of trust, causing browser security warnings that deter users, disrupting services, and potentially exposing data to interception, leading to penalties for inadequate security safeguards.

A GRC platform can help centralize certificate evidence, ownership, and renewal workflows so teams do not rely on spreadsheets or ad hoc reminders. With WatchDog Security, teams can use Asset Inventory to map internet-facing services and related domains, then use Posture Management to flag weak TLS configurations and misconfigurations across environments. Compliance Center can also package certificate evidence, renewal records, and configuration baselines for audits and customer requests.