My Site No Longer Has Security Certificate
I am receiving a notification that the security certificate for this site expired 4 days ago. Why is this?
2 Replies
hdiep
Linode Staff
SSL certificates expire to ensure they reflect up-to-date information and use the latest security standards. An unexpired SSL certificate allows you to host your website over HTTPS and create secure, encrypted connections between your site and its visitors. This safeguards communication. SSL also authenticates the server.
Generally, a website's security certificate lasts for a few months to a year from the date of its issuance, so the renewal timeframe may vary depending on the utility you've used to renew it. You can find out more information about the importance of renewing SSL certificates below:
If you're looking for an open-source utility to automatically renew your security certificate and reduce costs, you may be interested in using Certbot. It works directly with the free Let’s Encrypt certificate authority to request or renew a certificate, prove ownership of the domain, and install the certificate on web servers. I'm not sure what type of web server you have, but if you'd like to get started with Certbot, I've provided both our guides for NGINX and Apache below:
Security certificates have an expiration date to ensure that websites regularly update their security measures. When a certificate expires, it means that the website's administrators did not renew it in time. There could be several reasons for this, such as oversight, technical issues, or a delay in the renewal process.
An expired certificate doesn't necessarily mean that the website is compromised or unsafe to visit. However, it does indicate that the encryption between your browser and the website is no longer guaranteed. As a precaution, it's generally recommended not to enter sensitive information or engage in transactions on a website with an expired certificate.
To address this issue, you can try contacting the website's administrators or technical support team to bring the expired certificate to their attention. They should be able to renew your SSL certificate and restore secure browsing on the website. In the meantime, exercise caution when accessing the site and consider using alternative websites with valid security certificates.