Notes

DNS Security Basics - Ensuring Your Digital Certificates Remain Secured
Digital certificates provide proof that a website is highly regarded, leading to increased online business and credibility. They can also be used for building trust, between clients and site administrators. However, in order for your digital certificate to maintain its value and maintain the integrity of your brand, it must be managed regularly. Fortunately, today there are a variety of tools and processes available to help make this process easier.

The purpose is basically to get full visibility into all digital certificates, identifying what exactly is most important, and working towards making certain they stay up and running, never out of date, and always, not lost. Often times, though, digital certificate management isn't seen as such a low-maintenance job, because depending on the longevity of your certificates, you could have to worry about expiring every 1-5 years as well. With the right tools, though, you can reduce this risk to nearly nothing.

One of the first things you need to take into consideration when it comes to digital certificate management is how often you actually keep an eye on them. You might think that with all the technological advances in the World Wide Web that you can safely keep your digital certificates as "safe backups", meaning they will self-destruct after a certain amount of time anyway. That's not the case, though. As we've seen with the recent news about Target and MasterCard failing to update their card numbers, even the most secure encryption schemes are not completely foolproof. Therefore, it's important that you monitor your digital certificates and look for signs of tampering or other activity that could indicate an impending certificate expiration.

Of course, while every SSL/TLS provider has built in auto-installation capabilities for both themselves and third-party application providers, automation of your digital certificate management process is simply one part of the equation. There are also several third party tools and processes available to help you manage your certificates more effectively. Many third-party companies offer programs that automate the signing and generation of DNS TXT records, which are used to maintain authentication and integrity of the DNS records associated with your domain name(s). However, the list of programs available goes on from there, ranging from simple command lines for managing your SSL certificates to full featured, integrated systems that automate everything from application installation to generating DNS TXT records.

For those of you running your own business, the challenge with digital certificates lifecycle control can be especially problematic. For starters, many small business owners fail to realize that their SSL certificates are only valid for so long before they expire, and at the end of that period, they suddenly become subject to DNS locking by an administrator. The problem with this is that while you may think you've successfully stored your SSL private keys, at some point DNS will acquire your old keys and create new ones, potentially creating a problem for the business. Fortunately, there is a simple way to avoid this renewal process, but one that needs to be addressed as part of your digital certificates lifecycle management strategy.

First, when it comes to DNS locking, there are two options you have. You can manually lock the DNS resource records associated with your domain names, or you can automate the locking process with a DNS locking tool. While both of these solutions have their benefits, some experts advocate using both. After all, if you want to avoid DNS locking, then you'll need to avoid getting your SSL private key stored on DNS records too. This means manually locking DNS records, which can lead to a very long lifespan for your digital certificates, or to having them suddenly disappear from DNS records without any notification to you.

Next, when it comes to managing your digital certificates with DNS, it's important to understand that not all DNS service providers are created equal. Some DNS providers offer managed hosting, where they store your SSL key on their own servers and ensure that it is always up-to-date and in a secure place. Two12 providers, like Gartner, allow you to utilize their managed hosting capabilities, but don't provide a way to automate the locking process. As a result, both of these companies are able to provide a higher level of security for the sensitive data your company holds. However, with managed hosting you're better equipped to take advantage of DNS locking as an addendum to your SSL lifecycle management program.

Finally, it's important to consider whether or not you should automatically renew all of your SSL private keys with DNS. This is generally not a recommended practice; however, in some cases it makes sense. For instance, if you run multiple websites hosted on different domains, each with its own SSL private key, automatically renewing each key reduces the risk that one site could experience a security breach, while two sites may share the same certificate. Generally, however, Two12 of DNS are too great to make this type of automatic renewal unnecessary.
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