All digital certificates have a limited lifespan and are no longer recognized as valid upon expiration. Certificates needs to be replaced at the end of their life to avoid service disruption and decreased security. If a certificate fails, the vulnerability can be exploited by malicious man-in-the-middle attacks, allowing hackers to gain access to sensitive information. This will not only influence sales, day-to-day business, and brand reputation – but it will also result in a lack of confidence and trust from your customers. However, there are other scenarios where the certificate needs to be replaced/renewed before the expiration date, for example: SHA-1 end of life migration, change in company policy, etc.).
The certificates need to be constantly monitored to ensure that they are effective. The administrators should have controls over approval process of creating/requesting any certificate, just to ensure that no unwanted certificates are added to the system.
To avoid any security and management gaps such as certificates that get lost in the system, get expired, and cause revenue loss and reputation, organizations must design and implement proper certificate Lifecycle Management approaches/strategies.
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