See that little padlock icon to the left of our URL in the address bar? That shows the website is protected by an SSL certificate. It's a great way to tell potential customers that your brand is trustworthy.

But if you don't keep an eye on the status of your SSL certificates, there can be serious consequences for your website and your reputation.

In this post, we'll explore how SSL certificate monitoring works, how it affects brand trust and credibility, and how to do it right.

Table of Contents:

What Is An SSL Certificate?
What Is SSL Certificate Monitoring?
Why Do You Need To Monitor Your SSL Certificates?
How Do SSL Certificates Affect Brand Trust and Credibility?
Best Practices For SSL Certificate Monitoring
Conclusion

What Is An SSL Certificate?

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. It's an encryption-based internet security protocol designed to keep data safe as it travels between user devices and remote servers.

SSL certificates are digital documents that authenticate a website owner's identity and establish an encrypted connection between a client (the web browser) and a server (the website).

Side note: TLS (Transport Layer Security) is the successor to SSL, and the certificates we're discussing are technically SSL/TLS certificates—but most people still refer to them as SSL certificates, so that's how they're branded.

SSL certificates are issued by trusted organizations called Certificate Authorities (CAs). CAs will only issue certificates to organizations or individuals whose authenticity they can validate.

How Do SSL Certificates Work?

When someone wants to visit your website, their browser will initiate communication with the server. It will perform an action known as a "SSL/TLS handshake" to check the certificate's validity and the server's credentials.

If the certificate is valid, the visitor can continue their journey, and you can use your website visitor tracking software to discover viable leads. But if there's a problem, a warning message will deter them—which is bad news for your brand.

What Is SSL Certificate Monitoring?

SSL certificate monitoring is the process of tracking and managing your SSL certificates to check that they're up to date, working properly, and fully secure. Monitoring looks for potential issues such as expired certificates, security vulnerabilities, or misconfiguration.

The monitoring system sends automatic HTTP requests (usually HTTP GET requests) to your URL at a frequency you choose. These requests perform a thorough check. If the system finds that the SSL certificates are still valid, no further action is required.

If there's something wrong with the certification, the system initiates an "SSL certificate incident." This generates an automated alert sent to a specific IT team member (if they don't respond within a specific time frame, the alert goes to the next person on the on-call list, and so on).

The alert will contain information about the SSL certificate error, such as which URL is affected, what triggered the incident, and when it occurred. The alert system also kicks in when a certificate is due to expire so that you don't miss the renewal deadline.

Why Do You Need To Monitor Your SSL Certificates?

SSL certificate monitoring is crucial for keeping your website secure and functional and demonstrating your credentials to visitors. The first reason for monitoring is to make sure your certificate is still within its validity period.

Like all authentication protocols, SSL certificates have expiration dates, which force website owners to check and upgrade them regularly. The lifespan of your certificate depends on the CA you're using, but it's likely to be on the short side. The absolute limit is currently set at 398 days.

With short validity periods, owners have more opportunities to implement up-to-date security practices, meaning a security breach is less risky. Regular renewals also help confirm that the SSL certificate's owner is actually in charge of the domain, which is important when domains change ownership frequently.

It's best to set up automated monitoring and alerts so you don't forget to renew the certificate. But what are the other reasons for monitoring your SSL certificates apart from expiration?

• If you've installed your certificates incorrectly or failed to configure certificate chain settings properly, this can affect the strength of the encryption, causing insecure or non-functional SSL connections.
• The monitoring process looks for improperly signed certificates, weak hashing algorithms, and cryptographic keys that could leave you vulnerable to cyberattacks, such as protocol downgrade attacks or brute force attacks.
• It also helps you take a proactive approach to website security, identifying potential problems and preventing certificate incidents before they occur. An automated system allows you to run checks as often as possible.

Start Monitoring Now

How Do SSL Certificates Affect Brand Trust and Credibility?

Valid SSL certificates are critical in showing visitors that your website is secure. People want to know that you can protect their data, whether their login details or payment information, when they make a purchase.

Most users know nothing about SSL certificates or how they work. But when they see that little padlock icon, it tells them that the site is legitimate and that the brand that owns it cares about their online safety.

That's why it's so important to monitor your SSL certificates and fix any issues before they affect the following:

Site Accessibility

If your certificate has expired, anyone who clicks on your site will receive a warning message from their browser. This message will inform them that this website can't provide a safe connection and will be at risk if they continue their visit.

In most cases, people will choose not to continue to your site. They'll probably visit another brand—one of your competitors—that seems more trustworthy. The loss of credibility caused by an SSL certificate problem could permanently lose you that potential customer and their revenue.

Unsecured websites also have trouble connecting to third-party APIs like payment processors. This means that visitors who visit your site may be unable to carry out their desired actions. They'll likely see a 401 error and navigate away from your brand.

Search Engine Rankings

Another problem is that search engines like Google can penalize websites without valid SSL certificates, causing your SERP ranking to drop. This wastes your SEO efforts, a key part of business-to-business marketing strategies.

A high ranking is crucial for a successful online brand. Reduced visibility means lower awareness and fewer opportunities to win customer trust. In addition, Google flags websites that don't have a valid SSL certificate, which will put people off.

Data Security

As we mentioned, an expired SSL certificate puts your website at greater risk of a data breach. If the worst happens and your customers' sensitive information is compromised, your brand reputation will suffer.

By making SSL certificate monitoring part of your company's cybersecurity strategy and listing it in your publicly available security documentation, you can show customers that their data is safe as it travels over your networks.

Legal Compliance

It's also important to demonstrate that your brand complies with national and international security laws and regulations. This shows customers and relevant standards bodies that your site (and, by extension, your brand) is trustworthy.

For example, SSL certification is one of the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards) requirements, so you won't be able to process payments online without it. If you fail to comply with this or other requirements, you could face a fine or even legal action.

Best Practices for E-commerce Tracking

Here are some top tips to ensure the monitoring process goes smoothly, helping you convey brand credibility.

Set Up Timely Alerts

You can choose how your team receives alerts from the monitoring system, so make sure the setup meets your needs. For example, you can specify a preferred communication channel, a time frame for acknowledging the message, and the order in which team members are contacted.

For renewal alerts, make sure they're set to arrive well in advance of your SSL certificate's expiration date. This will give you plenty of time to renew.

Evaluate Your Responses

It's good practice to measure how quickly your team responds to alerts and incidents and look for ways to improve. Metrics to check include time to acknowledge (TTA) and Mean Time to Acknowledge (MTTA), which are average across all incidents. You should also evaluate the strength of your incident communication (both internal and external).

Implement Cron Job Monitoring

Cron job monitoring is a process that keeps track of scheduled automated tasks—in this instance, it checks that automated SSL certificate renewals run correctly and alerts you if not. This means you can resolve the issue even before regular SSL monitoring notifies you about imminent expiry.

Use Certificate Pinning

Certificate pinning gives you an extra layer of security, as it "pins" a specific certificate or its public key within your app. The SSL/TLS handshake will only accept this pre-approved certificate, thus preventing the use of fraudulent certificates. You'll need to ensure this is implemented properly.

Check Your CA

In addition to monitoring the certificates, it's a good idea to check that your chosen certificate authority is doing everything it can. For instance, ensure they follow strict protocols for issuing certificates and logging them publicly with certificate transparency (CT).

Keep Your Certificates Organized

Some organizations have thousands of SSL certificates, including Wildcard and Subject Alternative Name (SAN) certificates that cover multiple domains or subdomains. Maintaining an organized inventory gives you a centralized view and makes it easier to spot problems.

Use Automated Tools

While small businesses might try to get by with manual SSL certificate monitoring, it's best to use an automated tool. For example, WebSitePulse automatically downloads your certificates and checks their configuration, expiration, and validity at a frequency of your choice. It also delivers a detailed report with any detected issues.

Add Monitoring To Your Security Strategy

SSL certificate monitoring should be running alongside other measures. For example, if you integrate the process with your security information and event management (SIEM) systems, you can correlate certificate events with company-wide security data. 

You should also make security checks part of the software development lifecycle and include them in your risk management frameworks.

Final Thoughts

SSL certificates show website visitors that your brand can be trusted, leading to more customers and revenue. It's crucial to monitor the status of your certificates to check that they are still valid and functioning properly; otherwise, they could leave your site vulnerable to attack.

The best way to do this is with automated tools, which perform a series of checks and alert you to any problems. SSL certificate monitoring gives you peace of mind and ensures brand trust and credibility.

Start monitoring your SSL Certificate today!