DigiCert Changes to New Private Equity Owners

Yesterday, DigiCert announced the company has been acquired by Clearlake Capital Group and TA Associates. It has been a busy few years in terms of ownership changes for DigiCert. Since its 2015 acquisition by Thoma Bravo, DigiCert has made three sizeable acquisitions, including Symantec’s distrusted and soon-to-be nonexistent public certificate business, and now its ownership is changing again.

With this latest ownership change, it’s worth pointing out how crucial it is for Certificate Authorities to maintain the highest levels of performance. To preserve its place of extreme trust in the digital ecosystem, a CA needs to get a whole lot of things right, including:

• IT security
• Physical security for keys and operation centers
• Cryptographic practices
• Identity verification methods and information sources
• Compliance with many requirements, including those of standards bodies, browsers, governments, and more

Changes in control are sometimes accompanied by changed motivations as well. In the case of a private company under new ownership, the acquirer's business goals may potentially affect operations if those goals are different from the previous owner's.

I’m sure the security community will pay close attention to how this acquisition affects DigiCert in the coming quarters. No matter what happens, we wish them the best, and, Sectigo will continue to innovate for a safer internet, both on our own and in cooperation with others in the ecosystem. Through initiatives like our recent partnership with Let’s Encrypt to expand the availability of Certificate Transparency logs, we continue to create and offer technology products to make identity and website protection easier and more fool-proof than before.