Do You Need to Reissue Your Symantec SSL/TLS Certificate?

Why do you need to re-issue?

You may have heard the buzz that as of October 31st, 2017 DigiCert Inc. acquired Symantec’s Certificate Authority business. This means that beginning December 1, 2017, DigiCert will be issuing digital certificates from its newly re-structured PKI and will be performing certificate validation for SSL/TLS certificates under the Symantec umbrella of products (Including GeoTrust, RapidSSL, and Thawte).

Because of this merger/acquisition , all certificates issued from the previous PKI of Symantec need to be reissued. As a result all Symantec-issued SSL/TLS certificates that were issued before December 1, 2017 will need to be re-issued.

If the effected certificates are nor re-issued, upcoming versions of Google Chrome will distrust your SSL/TLS certificate. Here’s a timeline of Chrome’s distrust plan:

• Symantec-issued (Symantec, GeoTrust, RapidSSL, Thawte) SSL/TLS certificates issued before June 1, 2016 will be distrusted by Chrome 66, expected to be launched in March 2018. These certs must be reissued before March 15, 2018.
• Symantec-issued (Symantec, GeoTrust, RapidSSL, Thawte) SSL/TLS certificates issued between June 1, 2016 to Dec 1, 2017 will be distrusted by Chrome 70, expected to be launched in March 2018. These certs must be reissued before September 13, 2018.