Risks Of An Expired SSL Certificate: What You Need To Know

An expired SSL certificate poses a serious risk to your website’s security, credibility, and search engine visibility. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificates are essential for encrypting data between your server and users’ browsers, ensuring privacy and trust. But what happens when that certificate lapses without being renewed? In this guide, we reveal the risks associated with an expired SSL certificate, explain why they expire, and give you a step-by-step guide on how to renew or replace one.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Allowing your SSL certificate to expire compromises your site’s encryption, exposing visitors’ data to risk, and prompts browsers to distrust your site.
• Browser warnings from expired SSL certificates can erode user trust and result in immediate traffic and reputation loss, lower SEO ranking, and affect search engine crawling.
• An expired SSL certificate opens the door to cyberattacks, data theft, and potential legal consequences.
• Renewing an expired certificate is a step-by-step process that includes revalidating your domain through your original CA, submitting information, and reinstalling it.
• Hosting service providers and online tools make it quick and simple to renew or install a new SSL certificate with minimal downtime.
• Avoiding an expired SSL comes down to proactive monitoring and using certificate lifecycle automation tools to help ensure uninterrupted trust and protection for your website.

What Happens When an SSL Certificate Expires?

SSL, also known as TLS (Transport Layer Security) certificates, are used to encrypt communication between a visitor’s web browser and a server. It authenticates your site and helps protect sensitive data, such as login credentials, credit card numbers, and personal details.

SSL/TLS are digital certificates issued by a trusted Certificate Authority (CA) that contain cryptographic keys and identity information for your site to create secure connections for data to travel between your web server and browsers safely. When someone visits a website with a valid SSL certificate, their browser establishes an encrypted connection. This is generally shown by a padlock icon and the HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) prefix in a browser’s address bar.

These certificates have a validity period, usually 12 months, although some may have shorter times. This ensures the private and public keys are updated regularly and that they use the latest security standards. Older encryption methods may become vulnerable; so, renewing certificates on time protects sensitive data from interception. They also confirm that you still control the domain name and are the website owner.

On the technical side, SSL certificates require that expiration dates are encoded into their structure. These dates are checked by browsers every time a connection is requested so that only current, valid certificates are accepted. 

If a certificate expires, it becomes invalid, making data transfers unencrypted. This has the knock-on effect of browsers flagging your site as unsafe, and exposing visitors to data breaches, all of which can damage your site’s reputation and cause you to lose income. 

Why do SSL Certificates Expire?

As we discussed, SSL certificates, while important for website security, are not permanent. Despite being a built-in security feature, there are several reasons why certificates expire.

One of the most common reasons is simple human error. You can easily forget when yours is due for renewal, especially if you have multiple sites or subdomains.

Also, people and businesses sometimes don’t use certificate lifecycle management. This includes tracking expiration, as well as testing renewals and validations. Without these processes, the security risks of an expired SSL certificate increase dramatically.

SSL certificates rely on a chain of trust, including intermediate and root certificates. If intermediate certificates aren’t maintained or updated properly, even a valid SSL certificate may trigger error messages. These can also cause security issues and trigger warnings that appear similar to having an expired certificate.

The Impact of an Expired SSL Certificate

When a certificate expires, a visitor’s browser (Google Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge) will show warning messages like:

• Your connection is not private.
• Expired security certificate.
• NET::ERR_CERT_DATE_INVALID.

These errors prevent users from proceeding to the site, as the encrypted connection can no longer be trusted. Expiry errors can damage user trust, reduce site traffic, and leave data transmissions vulnerable until the certificate is renewed and reinstalled.

Visitors must choose to ignore these browser warnings to access the website; this does not happen regularly, as they fear it may contain malware or phishing scams. This can decrease traffic and erode customer trust and user experience, especially for ecommerce or subscription sites.

Browsers also prioritize safety and will always direct visitors to a site that offers a safe user experience. Each one handles expired certificates differently; for example, Chrome blocks webpage access unless visitors manually bypass warnings, which, again, most people won’t risk.

Google considers HTTPS a ranking signal, meaning websites with valid SSL certificates are more likely to rank higher in search results. Also, HTTPS enhances user trust, reduces bounce rates, and improves site security, all key SEO performance factors. An expired or missing SSL can harm your search visibility and credibility.

Search engine crawlers, which index your content, also need valid SSL certificates. When certificates expire, search engine bots may struggle to access your site, potentially reducing the frequency of crawls, which negatively impacts Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Over time, this can lower your site’s ranking in search results, resulting in less organic traffic.

Security Risks of an Expired SSL Certificate

When an SSL certificate expires, it no longer provides the encryption and authentication to secure a website. This leaves the site and its visitors exposed to several security risks.

Without SSL, sensitive data flows in plain text, leading to potential data theft, which is why browsers warn visitors that a site isn’t secure. If they bypass these warnings, any sensitive data transmitted (like login credentials or credit card numbers) can be intercepted by hackers because the encryption is no longer active.

They may also unknowingly submit personal data on an unprotected site. This can lead to compromizing sensitive personal information. The resulting data breach from security lapses can cause long-term damage to the brand’s reputation and user trust. Additionally, more businesses may face legal liability and regulatory fines for non-compliance with data protection laws.

An expired SSL certificate means that the website’s identity cannot be verified. Cybercriminals can exploit this by impersonating the legitimate website. In a Man-in-the-Middle attack, the attacker positions themselves between the visitor and a website, intercepting and potentially manipulating data transfers. This is particularly risky on public Wi-Fi, where it’s easier to set up fake networks or intercept traffic.

How to Renew an Expired SSL Certificate

Start by confirming that your certificate has actually expired. You can use online tools such as SSL Labs’ Check Tool or your browser by clicking the padlock icon in the address bar to view your SSL certificate details, including its expiration date and the issuing Certificate Authority (CA).

From there, access the account dashboard of the CA that originally issued your certificate. If you purchased yours through Hosted.com or had a free one included in your Web or WordPress Hosting plan, you can begin the renewal process through the cPanel control panel, which includes all the necessary management tools. Otherwise, contact our Support Team for assistance.

The first step is to generate a new Certificate Signing Request (CSR), a block of encoded text that contains identity information about your website, such as:

• Domain name (e.g., yourwebsite.com).
• Business name.
• City, state, and country.

It also includes your public key, which is essential for the encryption process. The new CSR is generated on your server, and the corresponding private key is created and securely stored on the same server simultaneously. You will typically go to the CA’s website, select the type of SSL certificate you need, and then paste the CSR you generated into their order form.

Depending on the type of SSL certificate you have, a revalidation process may also be required:

Domain Validation (DV): These certificates are the fastest, as they only require domain validation via email address, DNS records, or an HTTP file upload.

Organization Validation (OV) and Extended Validation (EV): These require a more involved validation process to reconfirm your business identity, which takes longer. This can include submitting updated business documentation or other verification methods.

Once you’ve made the payment for the renewal and received the new certificate files, you will need to upload and install them on your web server via cPanel, and then restart your web server services for the changes to take effect. If you skip this step, your website may continue to show the expired certificate.

Third-party services such as Let’s Encrypt or SSL.com offer free, automated renewal systems.

Acquiring a new SSL certificate is the same process as renewing your existing one. The only real difference is that if your current setup is working well, renewal is often the most convenient. Alternatively, if your website’s needs have changed (for example, you now require higher validation, a Wildcard certificate for a different domain structure), acquiring a new one may be a better choice.

How to Avoid Your SSL Certificate Expiring

Prevention is easier than dealing with the fallout from leaving your site exposed to security vulnerabilities and losing traffic. By following best practices, such as monitoring the SSL certificate expiration date and using automated certificate management tools, you can keep your website and visitors safe without the guesswork.

Use certificate lifecycle management solutions such as DigiCert or AWS Certificate Manager to monitor and manage everything in one place. These tools provide expiration alerts, renewal workflows, and policy enforcement to keep everything up to date.

Automation ensures your certificate is renewed before expiration with little input from your side. Use uptime monitors or SSL scanning tools that notify you if your certificate is nearing expiration or becomes invalid.

Finally, ensure that not only are your main certificates monitored, but that any intermediate and root certificates in the trust chain are also monitored. These components can impact security if they expire or are deprecated by CAs.

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Other Blogs of Interest

– Risks And Realities Of Unsecure Websites

– Understanding The Key Difference Between HTTP And HTTPS

– Free SSL Vs Paid SSL Certificates, Which Provides Better Value

– What Is SSL Certificate Management And How To Implement It

– SSL Inspection: How It Works And Why It Matters