Simple, automated SSL/TLS certificate management for small organizations

Certificate lifecycle management (CLM) refers to the processes and practices involved in the creation, issuance, renewal, monitoring, and revocation of digital certificates. There are many tools and approaches, but some are more effective than others to meet your specific needs in ensuring the security and reliability of your online activities.

A robust security strategy is akin to a well-coordinated team, where five pillars encompassing deployment, discovery, revocation, renewal, and automation with an overarching cap of visibility, play a crucial role. SCM Pro unifies these elements into a singular, secure ecosystem, ensuring comprehensive certificate management through automation and efficiency.

1. Deploy: Ensure your certificates are correctly installed and provisioned, eliminating inefficiencies.
2. Discover: Maintain uptime by effortlessly tracking the location and status of all your certificates, while flagging non-compliant certificates and potential security vulnerabilities for proactive management.
3. Revoke and Replace: Address vulnerabilities promptly by revoking and replacing existing certificates, ensuring business continuity.
4. Renew: Steer clear of outages by timely renewing certificates before expiry, seamlessly managing the renewal process across various platforms to prevent any delays.
5. Integration: Streamline complexity by consolidating multiple vendors into one cohesive solution, ensuring compatibility with your business ecosystem without any service downtime.
6. Visibility: Safeguard against security risks and breaches by maintaining compliance and regulatory standards, enhancing planning, reporting, and auditing for comprehensive visibility throughout your certificate lifecycle.

Managing certificates across multiple tools is inefficient even with diligent documentation. Manual certificate management processes are time-consuming and can lead to overlooked expirations and potential outages. As certificate lifespans continue to get shorter, more and more organizations have chosen to automate their certificates to prevent downtime, reduce complexity, and gain full visibility across their certificate operations.

If your SSL certificate expires, it could cause disruptions to your website, trigger alarming browser warnings for your visitors, and potentially harm the trust they have in your business. Utilizing an automated Certificate Lifecycle Management (CLM) tool like SCM Pro can be a game-changer – it provides full visibility into your certificate status, helping you detect any potential issues including rogue certificates early on. So, be sure to monitor your SSL certificates regularly and renew them before they expire to keep your online presence secure and reliable.

A rogue certificate is like a wolf in sheep's clothing: it appears legitimate and trustworthy because it's issued by a respected Certificate Authority (CA), but it's actually in the wrong hands or compromised. Hackers use these certificates to sneak into your system, posing as someone they're not, all to get their hands on your sensitive data and access your networks for malicious purposes.

But fear not! The secret to uncovering these tricky certificates is having complete visibility. And that's exactly what SCM Pro is here for, and more! With SCM Pro, you'll have unlimited free discovery scans and receive instant alerts about any possible threats, ensuring your business stays secure 24/7.

You'll no longer need to spend hours on tedious manual renewal processes. Thanks to SCM Pro's seamless automation protocol via ACME, SSL certificate renewal and installation can take as little as seconds, giving you extra time for a coffee break. And don't worry – if you prefer manual renewal, SCM Pro still gives you the freedom to opt for the method that works best for you with an intuitive workflow.

Automating SSL/TLS certificate renewals helps reduce manual work, missed expiration dates, and outage risk, which can be especially important for smaller IT teams with limited resources. SCM Pro provides an easy way to manage SSL/TLS certificates through guided ACME setup, automated renewals, and centralized monitoring of upcoming expirations.

Automation also helps organizations prepare for shorter certificate lifespans mandated by the CA/Browser Forum, including the transition to a 100-day maximum validity period in March 2027 and a 47-day maximum validity period in March 2029.

Automating your digital certificate management with SCM Pro overcomes common challenges, tailored for time-constrained teams:

• Know what you have and eliminate blind spots: Identifying all your public certificates is like finding a needle in a haystack. One-click with SCM Pro discovers all public certificates, regardless of origin, in a single pane of glass.
• Minimize tedious IT tasks: Manual provisioning is time-consuming and error prone. SCM Pro automation ensures your first installation is your last, saving time and resources while minimizing errors.
• Remain vigilant of upcoming expirations: Tracking certificate renewals is challenging. SCM Pro allows you to set up notifications and automates renewal alerts at customizable intervals, reducing lapses and security risks.
• Simplify complexity: Certificate management complexities impact productivity. SCM Pro's intuitive interface and step-by-step guides ensure ease of use, fostering productivity even during staff transitions.

SCM Pro is tailored for small and midsize organizations, web server admins, growing businesses, and lean IT teams that need a simpler way to manage SSL/TLS certificates.

With SCM Pro’s intuitive platform and single-pane-of-glass approach, it’s easy to discover, provision, renew, and monitor certificates all in one place, automating certificate management and saving valuable resources and time.

For organizations with more complex environments and certificate requirements, Sectigo Certificate Manager (SCM) may be a better fit. 

Essentially the main reason is that with SCM Pro and its certificates as a service model you are closer to having a continuous SSL environment. Here are four main reasons for SCM Pro:

• Find and track all your digital certificates
• Simplify IT tasks associated with certificate management
• Automate everything from issuance to renewal and beyond
• Future proof digital certificate uptime

With SCM Pro you can:

• Discover: Find all your public certificates in seconds
• Manage on autopilot: Fully automate all DV certificate tasks via ACME
• Intuitive and guided workflows: Step by step guides make it easier to eliminate IT burdens
• Certificates as a Service: Continuously issue free 90-day DV certificates per domain with no commitments
• One time validation: Re-use previously verified domain name to save time and effort

SCM Pro has CLM capabilities, like discovery tool and automation, that you would find in those made for enterprise organizations and yet it is purpose-built for resource-strapped small to medium-sized organizations. It is easy to use reducing time in learning a new tool, offers free unlimited continuous DV certificates per domain, and is backed by a certificate authority.

Sectigo is a trusted public Certificate Authority (CA), undergoing mandatory audits like Webtrust to ensure the robust compliance and security of its products. SCM Pro, the latest offering from Sectigo, simplifies certificate management by offering automation, alerts, and insights all in one platform.

SCM Pro is designed to cater to diverse needs regardless of their size or industry who face the daunting task of keeping up with digital certificates and website uptime. Whether you're a small startup or a growing enterprise, Sectigo can offer customizable solutions to fit your specific requirements. It can scale with your business, ensuring that you always have the tools you need to manage your certificate lifecycles effectively. For more complex and custom-fit requirements, get in touch for a custom recommendation.

Being backed by Sectigo, a trusted public Certificate Authority (CA) that follows stringent industry standards and mandatory audits like Webtrust, SCM Pro, and the DV certificates it issues ensures robust compliance.

SCM Pro provides features like automated alerts, configurable reporting, and continuous monitoring, enabling you to maintain a proactive compliance posture. Our audit log reports make it easy for you to adhere to industry regulations and standards.

SCM Pro is built for SMBs and smaller IT teams that need a simpler way to discover, manage, and automate public SSL/TLS certificates. 

Sectigo Certificate Manager is designed for larger, more complex digital certificate environments that require enterprise CLM capabilities such as multi-CA management, deeper integrations, and broader certificate use cases such as Private CA and Private PKI.

Start with a 30-day free trial with no credit card required. The trial includes a free discovery scan to identify public certificates across your environment, then goes on to provide guided workflows to begin managing and automating your DV and OV certificates.

Absolutely! With SCM Pro's trial, you can manage up to 5 Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDNs). Additionally, you'll have access to an unlimited number of 90-day free public DV SSL certificates covering these domains. It's a great opportunity to explore and secure your online presence hassle-free.

Your 30-day trial term starts the day you sign up for the trial. Therefore, we recommend getting started by creating your account and diving right into SCM Pro management features from day one. However, if you're enjoying SCM Pro, you can upgrade to a paid plan that fits your needs at any point during and after the trial. This way, you can continue benefiting from all the features SCM Pro has to offer.

If you decide to end your trial, you don't need to act as it will expire at the end of the 30 days, automatically disabling all core automated functionality.

In order to align with digital certificate life terms, SCM Pro plans come in two flavors, either monthly (30-day cycles) or yearly (12-month cycles). For this reason, we are unable to offer partial refunds by pro rating any billing cancellations. For SCM pro to automate the management for the proper certificate life term, we advise you to select the plan that best suits your needs.

Keep in mind, that at this time once you cancel your subscription, you can't reinstate it. So, please be cautious not to cancel accidentally. For more details, check out our Knowledge Base. If you need further assistance, feel free to get in touch with our team for assistance.

Yes, you can create a new account after your current subscription expires. However, please note that you cannot use the same email address. Our system links all your account details and data to your login email, so we need to keep things separate. If you require additional assistance, our team is here to help you out.

1. Log in to SCM Pro
2. On the left-hand side navigation panel, click on "Settings" and then select "Billing".
3. In the billing window, find and click on “Change for Payment Method”.
4. Follow the instructions and click "Submit" when you are done.

You can issue as many Sectigo public (90-day term) DV SSL certificates for the purchased domains as necessary during your trial 30-day period. If you're on a monthly paid subscription, you can also generate an unlimited amount of 90-day DV SSL certificates if your paid plan is active. However, if you opt for an annual subscription, you have the flexibility to issue an unlimited amount of either 90-day or 1-year DV SSL certificates for your domains.

With a monthly subscription, you can only issue an unlimited amount of Sectigo 90-day public SSL certificates per domain. The 6-month public DV SSL certificates are exclusively available for those with the annual subscription plan.

Choosing between a FQDN and a wildcard domain depends on your website's structure and needs. It's worth noting that www.example.com and example.com are counted as one domain, not two.

Here's a simple breakdown:

• Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN): If you have a single website or service with just one main address, like www.example.com or my.www.example.com, then an FQDN subscription is perfect for you. It's like having one key for one door – simple and straightforward.

• Wildcard Domain: A wildcard domain is used to protect multiple sub-domains underneath it. Imagine your website as a big house with different rooms for blogs, shops, or support sections. Now, let's say you have domains like store.example.com and www.example.com. Instead of managing each door separately, a wildcard domain like *.example.com acts like a master key, unlocking all the doors at once, making it easier for you to manage everything under one roof.