Akamai recently highlighted how organizations can strengthen Transport Layer Security (TLS) through reliable certificate posture management, emphasizing the critical need for visibility across certificates and the ongoing detection of weak ciphers, post-quantum risks, and unauthorized issuances.
This guidance has proven particularly timely given recent certificate security incidents, with the industry witnessing several concerning cases that underscore the vulnerabilities inherent in the current certificate authority (CA) ecosystem and the critical importance of comprehensive monitoring.
Recent real-world incidents that illustrate the risk
On September 3, 2025, Cloudflare disclosed that Fina CA had issued 12 unauthorized TLS certificates for their 1.1.1.1 public DNS resolver IP address between February 2024 and August 2025 — all without Cloudflare's permission or knowledge.
Although Fina CA claimed these were issued for "internal testing purposes," the incident revealed troubling gaps in domain control validation processes with unauthorized certificates; these include not only Cloudflare's IP address but also unregistered domain names, which are in clear violation of Certification Authority Browser Forum baseline requirements.
What made the situation worse was that these certificates went undetected for months because of Cloudflare's reliance on manual reviews of Certificate Transparency (CT) logs — a process that created delays and noise, and missed the very signals that comprehensive monitoring is designed to prevent.
In April 2025, there was another validation failure when SSL.com's flawed domain verification process led to unauthorized certificates being issued for legitimate domains. Although this incident remained relatively contained compared with larger breaches, it serves as yet another reminder that even seemingly minor CA validation errors can create significant security vulnerabilities.
Meanwhile, Entrust's mistaken issuance of more than 26,000 Extended Validation certificates created widespread disruption across the industry. When remediation efforts were delayed, Google responded by announcing that Chrome would distrust these certificates, forcing affected organizations into emergency certificate replacement cycles to preserve both user trust and service availability.
The strategic imperative of certificate posture management
These incidents reinforce that proactive certificate posture management is essential rather than optional for organizations that are managing critical infrastructure.
Digital trust relies entirely on TLS certificates to verify identities, encrypt data in transit, and preserve integrity in every web interaction. When certificates go unmanaged or unmonitored, the consequences can include impersonation, decryption of confidential data, unexpected downtime, regulatory noncompliance, and loss of reputation.
As real-world incidents demonstrate, dependency on CAs and browser vendors is no longer sufficient. Organizations must assume responsibility for continuous oversight of their certificate landscape.
The risks of overlooking certificate posture
Organizations without proactive certificate posture monitoring may encounter:
Impersonation and machine-in-the-middle attacks: Mis-issued or rogue certificates can be used to present malicious endpoints as trusted services.
Operational disruptions: Expired or revoked certificates can cause website outages or degraded service.
Compliance failures: Regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), and others require robust cryptographic hygiene. Certificates that fall short or are unauthorized can lead to violations.
Damage to brand trust: A high-profile certificate incident undermines customer confidence and invites scrutiny.
How Akamai DNS Posture Management closes the gaps
What if certificate security was as reliable as it is critical? That's the reality Akamai DNS Posture Management delivers by directly addressing the vulnerabilities exposed in these recent certificate mis-issuance incidents.
We've developed a comprehensive approach that eliminates the visibility gaps and manual processes that allowed these security failures to persist undetected. Our solution operates on three core principles designed to transform how organizations manage certificate security:
- Visibility
- Observability
- Actionability
Visibility: Comprehensive certificate discovery across your infrastructure
Certificate security failures often begin with a simple problem: Organizations don't know what certificates exist across their infrastructure. The Cloudflare incident demonstrates this perfectly — sophisticated security teams can still miss critical assets when relying on a fragmented view.
Our comprehensive discovery capabilities ensure complete coverage, including:
End-to-end certificate inventory: Discover certificates in your environment — including both domain-based and IP-based certificates such as those that evaded detection in the Cloudflare case — whether they're managed internally, by cloud providers, or by third-party services
Integrated DNS and certificate oversight: Break down the silos that traditionally separate DNS and certificate management, providing a unified view of your trust infrastructure and the relationships among these critical security components
Cross-platform asset mapping: Map your complete certificate ecosystem, from enterprise CAs to public CAs, regardless of where certificates originate
Observability: Intelligent monitoring that eliminates detection delays
Discovery alone isn't sufficient — the key is continuous, intelligent monitoring that catches problems before they become incidents. The months-long detection delays in recent cases highlight why manual monitoring approaches fundamentally don't scale. Intelligent monitoring includes:
Continuous CT analysis: Eliminate the manual CT log reviews that failed multiple organizations by deploying automated systems that monitor certificate issuance across all major transparency logs in real time
Advanced CA intelligence: Deploy sophisticated profiling that evaluates CA behavior patterns to identify potentially problematic issuances before they impact your security posture
Automated anomaly detection: Identify certificates that deviate from established patterns, validation requirements, or organizational policies — transforming detection time frames from months to minutes
Holistic risk assessment: Evaluate your certificate landscape against multiple risk factors, from basic expiration monitoring to advanced post-quantum cryptography readiness and compliance requirements
Actionability: Expert-driven response and continuous improvement
Intelligence without action leaves organizations vulnerable. The enterprises affected by recent incidents often had the data they needed to respond — they simply lacked the operational capacity to act on it effectively.
The ability to take action requires:
Expert-led managed services: Access Akamai's dedicated resources, which most organizations lack, for comprehensive certificate management
Structured remediation processes: When certificate threats are identified, receive detailed guidance and operational support to address vulnerabilities quickly, with prioritization based on business impact and exploitation potential
Enterprise integration capabilities: Connect certificate intelligence with existing security infrastructure through comprehensive APIs and integrations with security information and event management (SIEM), security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR), and other enterprise security platforms
Continuous governance enforcement: Implement automated policy validation and compliance checking that ensures certificate security standards are maintained consistently across your entire infrastructure
This integrated approach creates a self-reinforcing cycle in which each component strengthens the others. The result is a certificate security program that evolves and improves over time by ensuring that the detection failures and prolonged exposures we've witnessed become impossible in your environment.
Act confidently and quickly
Certificate posture lapses can happen anywhere. The increasing number of mis-issued certificates that are affecting high-profile services reinforce that notion. And waiting for CA or browser-based detection is too little, too late.
Leaders who adopt certificate posture management gain the operational awareness and controls needed to preserve digital trust, protect customer data, and reduce regulatory and reputational risk. With Akamai DNS Posture Management, organizations can act with precision, confidence, and speed.
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