Managing Digital Certificates

Red Kestrel has developed a certificate discovery product called CertAlert that addresses this challenge. CertAlert scans your networks for SSL certificates using IP ranges or lists of hostnames, providing comprehensive visibility across your infrastructure.

The solution identifies all types of SSL certificates regardless of issuing Certificate Authority (CA), including SSL, Extended Validation (EV), and self-signed certificates. CertAlert provides detailed information about discovered certificates through in-depth reports giving you complete visibility of your certificate landscape.

Like passports, certificates are issued with a finite lifespan—typically one or two years. When certificates expire, they can no longer be used for secure communications, leading to service disruptions and security warnings that impact user experience and business operations.

Monitoring certificate expiration is therefore a critical task for any IT department. CertAlert proactively alerts administrators about certificates that are approaching expiration within a configurable timeframe, providing:

• Automated email notifications to designated recipients
• Configurable alert thresholds (30, 60, or 90 days from expiry)
• Scheduled monitoring to ensure continuous oversight
• On-demand expiration checking for immediate verification

Beyond expiration, certificates can present various security and compliance issues that need to be addressed. Red Kestrel's comprehensive solutions provide in-depth reports that highlight a range of certificate problems, including:

By identifying these issues proactively, organizations can remediate potential security vulnerabilities before they impact security posture or compliance status.

The failure to replace expiring certificates can have serious consequences, including:

• Service outages affecting mission-critical systems
• Significant financial losses due to business disruption
• Reputation damage from customer-facing service failures
• Compliance violations and potential penalties

An effective certificate management strategy requires teams to maintain visibility into certificates approaching renewal periods (30, 60, or 90 days from expiry) so they can be renewed and installed in a timely manner. Red Kestrel tools help organizations maintain an up-to-date inventory of their certificates and create actionable lists of those requiring renewal.

By implementing a structured certificate lifecycle management process supported by automation, organizations can eliminate the risk of unexpected certificate expiration and ensure continuous secure operations.