I'm sorry, but has no-one heard of https://letsencrypt.org that issues certificates via API for free?
I would not be surprised if certificates at some point will be issued for each session.
I'm sorry, but have you ever needed to manage some certificates for a legacy system or something that isn't just a simple public facing webserver?
Automation becomes complicated very quickly. And you don't want to give DNS mutation access to all those systems to renew with DNS-01.
Ahh yes the: we can't have self signed certificates for security reasons but also can't open up the environment to the web, and we dont have our own CA server, trifecta.
Solution: awkward, manual, certificate import process from a 3rd party vendor.
Even if you have an internal CA, few appliances support this kind of automation. At best, they have an API, and you get to write that automation yourself for each appliance.
Knew a place where, for some devices, it was only available via a web interface. It was automated via WebDriver by a sysadmin that was losing his mind.
You can delegate to isolated nameservers with DNS-01, there's no need to have control over the primary zone: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/technical-deep-dive-securing-automation-acme-dns-challenge-validation
Yes, and that is where we enter the complicated territories..
It's not the issuance that's the headache, it's the installation. There are more things that need valid certs than just webservers
Part of this might be my general disdain towards sysadmins who don't know the first thing about technology and security, but I can't help but notice that article is weirdly biased:
Over the past couple of days, these unsung heroes who keep the internet up and running flocked to Reddit to bemoan their soon-to-be increasing workload.
Kind of weird to praise random Reddit users who might or might not actually sysadmins that much for not keeping up with the news, or put any kind of importance onto Reddit comments in the first place.
Personally, I'm much more partial to the opinions of actual security researchers and hope this passes. All publicly used services should use automated renewals with short lifespans. If this isn't possible for internal devices some weird reason, that's what private CAs are for.
I'm on the side of "automate it all and stop whining", but I do think it's important not to so readily dismiss the thoughts and opinions of those this directly affects in favour of the opinions of the security researchers pushing the change.
There are some legitimate issues with certain systems that aren't easily automated today. The issue is with those systems needing to be modernised, but there isn't a big push for that.
I'd be more concerned as well if this would be an over-night change, but I'd say that the rollout is slow and gradual enough that giving it more time would just lead to more procrastination instead, rather than finding solutions. Particularly for those following the news, which all sysadmins should, the reduction in certificate lifespan over time has been going on for a while now with a clear goal of automation becoming the only viable path forward.
I'll also go out on a limb and make a guess that a not insignificant amount of people only think that their "special" case can't be automated. I wouldn't even be surprised if many of those could be solved by a bog-standard reverse-proxy setup.
I'm not an "actual security researcher" but I was an "actual security officer" at a reeeeally large shop.
Yes, researchers are right. But they don't dictate what else we have to let slide to allow time to work this constantly.
And neither are they on the hook for it.
They can be pedants, but they can't do it blind.
Lame. 45 days? 10 days for DCV? How common are exploits involving old certificates anyway? And automated cert management is just another exploit target. Do they seriously think an attacker who pwns a server can't keep the automatic renewals running?
The solution, according to Sectigo's Chief Compliance Officer Tim Callan, is to automate certificate management — unsurprising considering the firm sells software that does just this.
Any post/article with the word “slammed” in it gets a downvote and a no-read from me. That word needs to disappear from journalism/forums/life/etc.
This is the one case where I'd make an exception. I read through the threads, it got particularly heated.
As someone who creates custom domain name applications, FUCK THEM WITH A PINEAPPLE SPIKY SIDE FIRST. This problem is on par with timezones for needless complexity and communication disasters. Companys and advertisers are now adding man in the middle certs for additional data collection/visibility. If the ciphers not cracked, changing the certs exposes significantly more failure, than letting one get a little stale.
Sysadmin used slam! It's super effective!
Why not just autorenew on a schedule?
I use Lets Encrypt, and my certs get renewed automatically without me thinking about it.
The Register is deliberately tabloid-like in style (right up to the "red top" site banner), but is good quality (at least when I read it).
They won't write an article about science without using the word "boffins" either. It's just their thing.
If approved, it will affect all Safari certificates, which follows a similar push by Google, that plans to reduce the max-validity period on Chrome for these digital trust files down to 90 days.
Max lifespans of certs have been gradually decreasing over the years in an ongoing effort to boost internet security. Prior to 2011, they could last up to about eight years. As of 2020, it's about 13 months.
Apple's proposal would shorten the max certificate lifespan to 200 days after September 2025, then down to 100 days a year later and 45 days after April 2027. The ballot measure also reduces domain control validation (DCV), phasing that down to 10 days after September 2027.
And while it's generally agreed that shorter lifespans improve internet security overall — longer certificate terms mean criminals have more time to exploit vulnerabilities and old website certificates — the burden of managing these expired certs will fall squarely on the shoulders of systems administrators.
Over the past couple of days, these unsung heroes who keep the internet up and running flocked to Reddit to bemoan their soon-to-be increasing workload. As one noted, while the proposal "may not pass the CABF ballot, but then Google or Apple will just make it policy anyway…"
...
However, as another sysadmin pointed out, automation isn't always the answer. "I've got network appliances that require SSL certs and can't be automated," they wrote. "Some of them work with systems that only support public CAs."
Another added: "This is somewhat nightmarish. I have about 20 appliance like services that have no support for automation. Almost everything in my environment is automated to the extent that is practical. SSL renewal is the lone achilles heel that I have to deal with once every 365 days."
Until next year, anyway.
spending $300 every 90 days instead of 365 days is so much better /s
i hate apple so much
Who is buying SSL certs for $300? Is this an enterprise thing? I’m using free certs on AWS. LetsEncrypt is also fine for self-hosting.
It is an enterprise thing, yes.
$300 sounds ok for an enterprise thing
It's more of an issue when it's every 90 days. Even worse is the labor cost to replace the certificate on everything that needs it every 90 days.
I was in a meeting before the summer discussing this with Digicert we asked if you would need to pay every 90 days.
They answered that certs will still be bought at 1, 2, or 3 year intervals but can be renewed for free every 90 days.
It's pretty obvious when you think about it really.
Smells like Apple knows something but can’t say anything. What reason would they want lifespans cut so short other than they know of an attack vector that means more than 10 days isn’t safe?
AFAIK they’re not a CA that sells certs so this can’t be some money making scheme. And they’ll be very aware how unpopular 10 day lifespans would be to services that suck and require manual download and upload every time you renew.
Automated certificate lifecycle management is going to be the norm for businesses moving forward.
This seems counter-intuitive to the goal of "improving internet security". Automation is a double-edged sword. Convenient, sure, but also an attack vector, one where malicious activity is less likely to be noticed, because actual people aren't involved in tbe process, anymore.
We've got ample evidence of this kinda thing with passwords: increasing complexity requirements and lifetime requirements improves security, only up to a point. Push it too far, and it actually ends up DECREASING security, because it encourages bad practices to get around the increased burden of implementation.
Just going to mention my zero-dependency ACME (Let's Encrypt) library: https://github.com/clshortfuse/acmejs
It runs on Chrome, Safari, FireFox, Deno, and NodeJS.
I use it to spin up my wildcard and HTTP certificates. I've personally automated it by having the certificate upload to S3 buckets and AWS Certificates. I wrote a helper for Name.com for DNS validation. For HTTP validation, I use HTTP PUT.
Why have this run in the browser? Why not just have it run on the server and renew in the background?
time to shine for DANE (actually no since the world sucks)
This'll never happen. The rest of the computing world will just say "nah, get fucked"
Slams!
Sounds like free money for all those certificate authorities out there. Imma start my own CA with blackjack and hookers.
Or... They do what they did last time the lifetime was cut down from 3-10 years down to 395 days... Just issue you a new certificate when the old one runs out and up to whatever the time period you bought it for...?
Let's Encrypt isn't the only CA to use ACME, you can auto renew with basically any CA that implemented it (spoiler: most of them have)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
