Just a few years ago, SSL/TLS certificates were renewed once a year, often as a recurring item in a manual calendar or a simple Excel list. The certificates were static security points that were managed alongside the daily operations. Those days are now long gone. What used to be an administrative side issue has rapidly turned into a critical business risk.
The shrinking lifespan of certificates means higher risk
We are in the midst of a paradigm shift, with major industry players like Google and Apple pushing for dramatically shortened validity periods. The old standard of 13 months is being erased in favor of cycles of 90 days, and in some future scenarios there is talk of validity periods down to just a few weeks. The aim is to increase cryptographic security, but for the IT organization it means an explosive increase in workload.
When renewal rates quadruple or more, manual work is not only inefficient but also becomes a downright dangerous bottleneck. As demands for speed increase, more and more Certificate Authorities (CAs) are choosing to stop sending out external reminders. The responsibility for not missing a critical date now lies entirely with the individual organization.
Shorter validity periods and higher risk: the new reality for your SSL certificates
Many environments still suffer from fragmented management where certificates reside locally on servers and are managed by different teams or rely on person-dependent knowledge. This creates a dangerous lack of traceability. In a modern infrastructure of microservices, cloud platforms and hybrid environments, it's no longer a question whether a certificate will be missed, but when.
For a modern IT department, these developments pose three pressing challenges:
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An unsustainable administrative burden: Manually managing dozens or hundreds of certificates every three months steals valuable time from strategic security work.
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The risk of domino effects: A single expired certificate can cause costly downtime, broken integrations between business-critical systems, and immediate loss of trust with end customers.
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Increased compliance requirements: With regulations such as NIS2 and DORA, certificate and key management deficiencies are no longer merely a technical problem, but a matter of compliance and legal responsibility.
In this new reality, centralized control and automation is no longer a luxury option for the largest companies - it is a prerequisite for ensuring secure and stable operations in the first place.
KeyManager Plus: Control, automation and security
Managing this new reality requires a centralized lifecycle management solution. ManageEngine KeyManager Plus is designed to give IT full visibility and control over the entire certificate landscape
Total control: From local networks to hybrid clouds and Telia
Eliminating the risks of manual management requires a centralized view of your organization's entire certificate landscape. Instead of relying on insecure Excel lists, KeyManager Plus can automatically scan the network to find all installed certificates - whether public, internal or issued by different CAs. It all comes together in a single interface, giving IT full visibility of both expiration dates and specific uses.
But control does not stop at the local network. As infrastructure moves to the cloud and becomes containerized, the complexity of certificate management increases dramatically. KeyManager Plus is built to bridge these gaps through deep integrations in modern hybrid environments:
Azure Key Vault & Applications
Through a seamless integration with Microsoft Azure, IT can discover, retrieve and manage SSL certificates and TLS secrets directly in Azure Key Vault.This provides a single view of cloud-based resources without administrators having to switch between different portals or manually synchronize keys.
Kubernetes environments
For containerized applications, the tool manages TLS secrets directly in Kubernetes clusters.It allows certificates to be retrieved, updated and rotated centrally, effectively eliminating the risk of services in the cluster going down due to overlooked expiration dates.
Swedish security standard with Telia as CA
For Swedish authorities, regions and businesses in banking and finance, it is often a requirement to use Telia as a trusted CA.KeyManager Plus complements the hybrid view with dedicated support for Telia. This means that you can manage Telia-issued certificates with exactly the same automated processes and lifecycle management as for other CAs, ensuring that you meet both internal requirements and regulatory security requirements.
While many Swedish organizations have specific requirements to use Telia as a CA for their security and local compliance, other parts of the infrastructure often require different solutions. KeyManager Plus offers a wide range of integrations with public CAs and through support for the ACME protocol, you can fully automate the lifecycle of certificates from services such as Let's Encrypt, ZeroSSL and Buypass.
Proactive monitoring and automation
When external reminders go missing, you need to own the alert chain yourself. KeyManager Plus offers:
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Configurable alerts: set alerts via email, SNMP or system integrations (e.g. 30, 15 or 7 days before expiration).
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End-to-end automation: The system manages the entire chain from CSR generation and ordering to installation on the right service.
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Reduced margin of error: Automating renewal minimizes the risk of human error and costly outages in critical systems.
Regulatory compliance: NIS2, DORA and ISO 27001
As new regulatory requirements such as NIS2 and DORA come into force, the need for traceability and secure management of cryptographic keys increases. KeyManager Plus helps you meet these requirements through:
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Encrypted storage: All private keys are stored with AES-256 encryption.
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Role-based access: Ensure that only authorized personnel have access to specific certificates.
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Full audit log: All activity is logged to provide full audit traceability.
Summary and our perspective
We have seen how certificate management has evolved from a simple IT project to a strategic security issue. We recommend KeyManager Plus because it combines technical breadth with the local customization required in the Swedish market, not least through the important support for Telia.
Our experience shows that the organizations that succeed best are those that stop seeing certificates as single events and instead see them as part of an automated life cycle.
Are you ready to future-proof your certificate management? Let us show you how to move from manual risk to automated assurance. Contact us at Inuit to book a demo or to start a free evaluation of KeyManager Plus in your own environment.
Book a demo or test KeyManager Plus here
