Understanding the Critical Need for CA Redundancy
Enterprise PKI managers face a crucial question today: What happens if your primary Certificate Authority becomes compromised, has a disruptive revocation event, gets distrusted, or simply can’t meet your needs? Without a backup CA strategy, your organization risks service disruptions, compliance violations, and operational chaos.
The Growing Risks of Single-CA Dependency
CA Incidences Are Becoming More Common:
- DigiNotar Breach (2011): A complete industry-wide distrust that disabled government systems and critical services almost overnight
- DigiCert recently conducted a mass revocation of over 83,000 SSL/TLS certificates due to a verification issue. This action was prompted by a bug in their internal processes, which led to the issuance of certificates without proper domain control verification (DCV). The incident was disclosed on July 30, 2024, and affected approximately 6,800 customers, including those in critical infrastructure sectors.
- Symantec Distrust: Major browsers removed trust due to validation lapses, forcing organizations to replace certificates under extremely short deadlines
- Mass Revocations: Occurring with increasing frequency due to non-compliance, negative audit findings, or certificate mis-issuance
In each case, companies without a backup CA were forced into emergency remediation—scrambling to validate domains, onboard a new provider, and issue thousands of replacement certificates within days.
Beyond Distrust: When Your CA Underperforms
Even when your primary CA maintains browser trust, operational issues can impact your business:
- Slow certificate issuance times
- Unresponsive enterprise support
- Incomplete DNS or CAA compatibility
- Delays in adopting new security standards
These performance gaps affect your operational agility and security posture. Utilizing a backup CA like SSL.com provides flexibility and responsiveness.
SSL.com: Your Enterprise Backup CA Solution
Pre-Validated Readiness
The key to effective CA redundancy is preparation before an emergency occurs:
- Organization Pre-validation for OV and EV Certificates: Complete organization validation in advance so SSL.com can issue fully validated certificates at a moment’s notice—even if your primary CA is down
- Legal and Subscriber Agreements Ready: Complete legal and compliance reviews to eliminate days or weeks of unnecessary delays during critical situations
- Certificate Profiles & Automation Configuration: Set up your ACME, SCEP, or enterprise automation workflows now—so you can issue certificates at scale instantly when needed
- Complete Vendor Due Diligence Processes and Security Auditing ahead of time and reconcile gaps before a disruptive event
Developing Your Backup CA Strategy
Planning ahead for a backup Certificate Authority (CA) is critical. Make sure your fallback CA has the same comprehensive browser and OS trust coverage—including Chrome, Edge, Safari, Firefox, iOS, Android, and Windows—and confirms it meets any legacy compatibility you may need. Verify in advance that all required enterprise integrations (e.g., Microsoft, AWS, MDMs, secure email/document signing) are set up and ready to go, so you can avoid any downtime should your primary CA become unavailable.
Likewise, ensure that this alternate CA has undergone the required audits and fully adheres to the policy and regulatory standards you’re bound by. This proactive approach helps minimize operational disruptions down the line.
SSL.com stands out for its extensive trust footprint, practical out-of-the-box integrations, and dedicated support for custom integration needs. Our compliance review further assures you that, when it’s time to activate your backup solution, the transition will be smooth, secure, and fully aligned with your organization’s requirements.
By onboarding SSL.com now, your organization will:
- Eliminate delays with pre-validated OV/EV profiles
- Maintain operations during CA outages or mass revocations
- Avoid legal and compliance bottlenecks
- Ensure browser and vendor trust across your technology stack
- Be prepared to issue replacement certificates instantly
Talk to an SSL.com Enterprise Specialist
SSL.com is trusted by Fortune 500 companies, federal agencies, financial institutions, and SaaS platforms as their backup CA solution. Don’t let your business depend on a single point of failure.
Contact a specialist today to build a custom backup CA plan for your organization’s specific needs.
