Sectigo launches ctlint to advance webPKI compliance and strengthen global digital trust

In an era of shortening certificate lifespans and increasing regulatory scrutiny, Certificate Authorities (CAs) face growing complexity in ensuring that every certificate meets stringent conformance standards. CT enables public CAs and other interested parties to detect rogue or misissued certificates, reinforcing trust in the global internet infrastructure. CT logs make it possible for anyone – from CAs and researchers to individual organizations – to monitor the quality of issued public certificates, identify examples of misissuance, and monitor their own domains for rogue or improperly obtained certificates. Popular web browsers verify certificates to ensure that CT logging has occurred, but the method for recording this logging within certificates is error-prone for even sophisticated public CAs. As a tool, ctlint can monitor certificates for such mistakes before they are issued, providing greater overall quality and reliability to the CT system.

“A strong WebPKI requires technical leadership from organizations prepared to invest in the ecosystem,” said Stradling. “Sectigo is continuing its role as a WebPKI leader by developing open, community‑driven tools like ctlint that help CAs meet compliance standards and strengthen trust for everyone. This is one of several initiatives where we have invested our expertise to make the internet safer and ensure end users are protected from the risks of non‑compliance and security gaps.”

Sectigo plays a leading role in delivering the essential technical infrastructure that underpins today’s public CA ecosystem, ensuring accountability, compliance, and innovation within the WebPKI landscape. Major contributions by Sectigo include:

• crt.sh: A CT log aggregator that serves as the industry‑standard tool for searching CT logs.

• pkimetal: A high-performance PKI meta-linter that streamlines pre-issuance linting for public CAs

• Open MPIC: An open-source tool that helps all CAs comply with CA/Browser Forum requirements aimed at enhancing the security of digital certificate issuance against BGP attacks.

Sectigo’s philosophy is rooted in intellectual leadership and industry-wide collaboration. By open-sourcing ctlint for any CA to use, Sectigo enables competitors to strengthen CT compliance, reducing industry risk and improving trust for every internet user, not just Sectigo customers. This same commitment to raising the industry baseline is also reflected in Sectigo’s active leadership within standards bodies. The company currently holds more combined leadership positions in the CA/Browser Forum and ETSI than any other organization in history and uses that influence to advocate for policies that protect the broader internet ecosystem.

 “We’re incredibly proud of Rob and his long track record of contributions to strengthening the broader internet ecosystem on behalf of Sectigo, of which ctlint is the latest,” said Kevin Weiss, chief executive officer at Sectigo. “His dedication to transparency and open-source innovation benefits the Certificate Authority community as a whole and is a key reason Sectigo is regarded as one of the most trusted CAs in the market, helping organizations stay ahead of evolving security demands, from the shift to 47-day certificate lifespans to preparing for a post-quantum future.”

For more information, including API documentation and instructions on how to deploy your own instance of ctlint, visit the open-source project website at: https://github.com/crtsh/ctlint/blob/main/README.md.

About Sectigo 
Sectigo is the most innovative provider of certificate lifecycle management (CLM), delivering comprehensive solutions that secure human and machine identities for the world’s largest brands. Sectigo’s automated, cloud-native CLM platform issues and manages digital certificates across all certificate authorities (CAs) to simplify and improve security protocols within the enterprise. Sectigo is one of the largest, longest-standing, and most reputable CAs with more than 700,000 customers, six combined active seats in the CA/Browser Forum and ETSI, and two decades of delivering unparalleled digital trust. For more information, visit www.sectigo.com or follow us on LinkedIn.  

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