SSL Certificate Automation Failure

Incident Report for CyberFOX

Postmortem

SSL Certificate Automation Failure

Summary

On December 3, 2025 at 00:00 UTC (December 2, 2025 at 8:00 PM EST), our automated SSL certificate import process experienced a failure. As a result, an expired certificate briefly remained active on our Content Delivery Service.

Impact

  • Duration: The issue began at 00:00 UTC / 8:00 PM EST.
  • Identification: The incident was identified at 7:30 AM EST on December 3.
  • Resolution: The updated certificate was manually installed by 7:45 AM EST, restoring secure connections.
  • Scope: Limited to the Content Delivery Service for the Password Boss services.
  • Customer Experience: Some customers may have seen browser or application warnings about insecure connections. No data was compromised, and service availability was maintained.

Resolution

The issue was detected by our operations team at 7:30 AM EST and resolved within 15 minutes through manual certificate installation. All services are now fully operational.

Preventive Actions

We are implementing several improvements to strengthen reliability and prevent similar incidents:

  • Automation Review: Comprehensive audit of all certificate automation processes.
  • Validation Checks: Adding success verification steps to confirm certificates are properly imported.
  • Real‑Time Alerts: Enhancing monitoring to notify our team immediately if a failure occurs.
  • SSL Monitoring Enhancements: Expanding monitoring of SSL certificate services to identify and alert even faster at the moment of failure.
  • Resilience Enhancements: Introducing fallback mechanisms to ensure certificates are applied even if automation fails.

Commitment

We take our customers' trust and security seriously. While this incident was short‑lived and contained, it highlighted the importance of robust certificate lifecycle management. The corrective actions underway will reduce the likelihood of recurrence and further strengthen the reliability of our services.

Posted Dec 03, 2025 - 09:51 EST

Resolved

Yesterday, our automated SSL certificate import process encountered an unexpected failure. As a result, an expired certificate remained briefly active in our Content Delivery Service for the Password Boss services.

The issue was promptly identified and addressed. Within minutes of discovery, the updated certificate was manually installed, restoring full functionality. All services are now operating normally with no residual impact.

We are conducting a thorough review of our certificate automation workflows to strengthen reliability and prevent similar occurrences in the future. Enhancements will include additional monitoring, validation checks, and failover safeguards to ensure seamless certificate updates going forward.
Posted Dec 03, 2025 - 07:45 EST