In a significant shift for digital identity management, the maximum lifespan of public TLS certificates is set to be reduced to just 47 days, following a new policy from Apple’s Root Program. With Google expected to follow suit, the clock is ticking faster than ever on certificate validity and that has profound implications for businesses relying on manual processes.

Shorter lifespans mean certificates will need to be renewed nearly eight times more frequently than the traditional 398-day period. While the change is designed to improve security by limiting the impact of compromised or misconfigured certificates, it simultaneously introduces new operational challenges. Chief among them: how to scale certificate lifecycle management in a world where the margin for error is shrinking fast.

The Automation Imperative

The complexity of modern IT and IoT environments makes manual certificate management not just inefficient, but untenable. Rotating certificates every 47 days across potentially thousands or even millions of devices become a logistical nightmare and a prime opportunity for outages or breaches if missteps occur.

Automation isn’t just beneficial, it’s essential. By automating certificate provisioning, rotation, and revocation, organizations can ensure continuity, reduce the risk of human error, and maintain compliance with tightening security policies.

What This Means for IoT

The stakes are even higher in the world of IoT, where constrained devices, intermittent connectivity, and large-scale deployments introduce unique challenges to Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) management.

Device Authority has long recognized that PKI for IoT is not just “PKI at scale.” It requires purpose-built automation that takes into account the lifecycle of IoT devices, from manufacturing and onboarding to operation and decommissioning.

Device Authority’s PKI automation solution enables:

• Policy-driven certificate management aligned with device identity

• Scalable and secure onboarding of devices with zero-touch provisioning

• Automated renewal and revocation without manual intervention

• Auditability and compliance with evolving industry and regulatory standards

As Darron Antill, CEO of Device Authority, puts it:

“Shortening TLS certificate lifespans is a wake-up call to modernize security operations. The human cost of error and mismanagement to nay companyis huge. Automation is the only way to ensure agility and resilience in dynamic, high-scale environments and that’s exactly where Device Authority excels.”

Looking Ahead

The reduction of TLS certificate validity is part of a broader trend toward zero trust, automation, and continuous validation of identities. Organizations that adopt automation today will be better positioned not just to comply with certificate policies, but to build a future-ready digital trust infrastructure.

To learn more about how Device Authority enables secure, automated certificate management for IoT and connected devices, visit: deviceauthority.com