Modernization rarely begins without a catalyst. For organizations managing machine identities, the CA/B Forum mandate is driving a wave of change—transforming compliance pressure into momentum for lasting modernization.
For more than a decade, organizations have recognized that their machine identity operations are fragile. Manual renewals, siloed ownership, and spreadsheet-driven workflows were never built for the speed and scale of modern digital business. Teams managed to keep up only because the one-year renewal window provided them with enough breathing room to survive the manual toil. That era is over.
The CA/B Forum’s decision to shorten public TLS certificate lifespans isn’t just another compliance update. It is the strongest forcing function the industry has seen in years—and forward-looking organizations are already treating it as the tipping point to modernize their entire machine identity management (MIM) approach. They understand that solving only for shorter browser-based certificates, without addressing internal PKI, SSH keys, workloads, and emerging AI identity challenges, will lead to a decade of firefighting and avoidable outages.
Because this moment isn’t about passing an audit.
It’s about preparing for AI agents, post-quantum cryptography (PQC), and the next generation of digital systems. It’s about protecting revenue, safeguarding critical services, and strengthening the foundation of digital trust every organization depends on.
Why the CA/B Forum mandate is reshaping machine identity management
Beginning in 2026, certificate validity windows shrink dramatically:
- 200 days in 2026
- 100 days in 2027 and 2028
- 47 days in 2029
Shortening certificate validity windows isn’t a minor adjustment. It represents at least 2×, 4×, and eventually 8× more lifecycle work than organizations handle today. Left unaddressed, this becomes a wall of work—thousands of wasted manual hours and a rising likelihood of outages.
The message is clear: manual, ticket-driven certificate processes cannot scale. Adding more people won’t solve the problem. Automation will. And the phased rollout provides organizations with something they’ve never had before: a runway.
A runway not only to automate browser-based certificates, but to finally tackle internal certificates as well. Every hour reclaimed through automation eliminates manual, messy, and operationally miserable tasks. And every hour saved becomes capacity that can be redirected toward higher-value machine identity priorities.
Browsers didn’t simply shorten certificate lifespans.
They created the catalyst enterprises needed to modernize long-overdue processes.
A runway to fix what’s broken in machine identity management
The CISOs I’m working with aren’t just reacting to shorter certificate timelines—they’re using this moment to rethink how machine identities are managed across the enterprise. Once they automate one part of the ecosystem, the path opens to automate the rest.
They’re approaching modernization in three agile, reinforcing steps:
1. Establish visibility and automate external certificates
Leaders are beginning with unified discovery—external, internal, cloud, and on-prem—to see the full scope of their certificate footprint. With that foundation, they’re automating external TLS issuance, renewal, and deployment to eliminate avoidable outages and reduce operational drag.
2. Expand automation to internal and private PKI
With visibility in place and noise reduced, CISOs are extending automation to internal certificates, which represent the most significant and most risk-prone footprint. Expanding automation to internal and private PKI isn’t a waterfall “phase two,” but a natural continuation that removes even more manual work and creates consistent, predictable operations.
3. Apply the operational capacity gained to modernize everything else
As manual effort drops, teams can redirect their focus to the areas that matter most:
- SSH key rotation and governance
- Workload identities across hybrid and multi-cloud
- Ephemeral certificates for DevOps and CI/CD
- Code-signing trust and software supply chain integrity
- AI and agent identities
This stage is where the shift happens: organizations stop firefighting and start building long-term, scalable trust across their entire machine identity ecosystem.
How the CA/B Forum spins up the machine identity modernization flywheel
Modernization doesn’t end with certificates.
It begins there.
The CA/B Forum mandate forces the first step: automating external certificate lifecycles. That momentum naturally drives internal PKI automation, which then becomes the foundation for extending modernization across SSH keys, workloads, code signing, and emerging identity types.
This process is the modernization flywheel in action—a multi-year journey where each step compounds value:
- Outage risk plummets as renewals become predictable and automated
- Renewals shrink from days to seconds
- Time savings are reinvested into modernizing complex identity systems
- Compliance becomes continuous rather than episodic
- Security posture strengthens as long-standing gaps finally close
Organizations that embrace this model gain something their teams haven’t had in years:
Headspace, capacity, and a clear path to modernization.
Modern machine identity security becomes a business enabler
What starts as an IT requirement becomes a direct driver of business value. Across industries, machine identity modernization protects revenue, ensures availability, and strengthens customer trust:
- Retail: Maintain trusted e-commerce, POS, and inventory APIs—protecting digital and in-store revenue.
- Financial services: Ensure secure, always-available transactions and resilient customer experiences.
- Healthcare: Protect EHR access, medical devices, and telehealth platforms through continuous trust and secure authentication.
- Manufacturing: Keep assembly lines running by validating signed designs and securing machine-to-machine workflows.
- High tech and software: Guarantee code integrity and secure build pipelines.
- Public sector: Protect digital citizen services and mission-critical infrastructure with high availability, so services remain accessible and reliable when needed most.
When executed well, modern MIM becomes a business enabler rather than a technical burden.
Why now is the time to modernize machine identity management
Modernization rarely begins without a catalyst.
The CA/B Forum has provided one. The question is how organizations will use it.
Teams can view this as another compliance mandate—or as the opportunity to transform machine identity security into a strategic advantage.
Compliance is mandatory.
Modernization is how you get ahead.
If you want to understand precisely how much your organization can save—and how quickly—automation can deliver results. Quantifying potential savings and accelerating results starts with building a business case for automation—one that brings together security, operations, and executive leadership.
Now is the moment to turn compliance pressure into momentum for modernization.
Your machine identities—and your business—will be stronger for it.
Nick Curcuru is a director in the CyberArk Trust Office.
