47 Days, Zero Panic: How CISOs Can Thrive in the New TLS Reality

February 17, 2026

For years, spreadsheets quietly carried the weight of TLS certificate tracking. They weren’t perfect — but they worked well enough. In a 398‑day renewal world, “good enough” didn’t always break things.

 

But renewal windows are getting shorter. Certificate validity windows shrink from 398 days to 200 days in March 2026, and then to 100 days in 2027 and just 47 days in 2029.

 

It’s not that spreadsheets are bad — they’re just not designed to handle:

  • An 8x increase in certificate renewal workload
  • ~6‑hour manual renewal processes per certificate repeated ~8 times per year
  • The governance burden and outage risks of 47-day renewal cycles

 

Think of it this way – If it’s manual, it’s fragile. If it’s automated, it scales.

 

 

Automation: The CISO’s Strategic Advantage

Sure, automation will make this process more efficient. But more importantly, it is a strategic way to reduce risk.

 

 

Automated Discovery = No More Blind Spots

Continuous scanning eliminates hidden certificates and unexpected expirations. Your attack surface shrinks and your confidence grows.

 

Event‑Driven Renewals = No Fire Drills

Certificates renew themselves on policy‑driven schedules, without ticket queues, weekend deploys or human bottlenecks.

 

Continuous Validation = Fewer Incidents

Automated verification catches misconfigurations before systems break, for fewer outages and faster remediation.

 

Unified Governance = Audit Readiness on Demand

Automated lifecycle tracking supports strong, consistent, enterprise‑wide compliance, something spreadsheets were never designed to do.

 

Choosing automation is the only sustainable model for operating in a 47‑day ecosystem.

 

 

Turning the Mandate into Momentum

Compressed renewal timelines increase pressure across posture, compliance, operations and resource allocation. Automation is the stabilizer that gives leaders predictable, controlled outcomes.

 

Organizations that modernize now will benefit from:

  • Stronger operational resilience
  • Reduced manual effort and staffing strain
  • Lower outage risk
  • Improved audit performance
  • Better alignment between security and business continuity

 

 

A Practical Path for CISOs

Here’s the modern blueprint for the new TLS world:

Map your entire certificate landscape: Prioritize visibility across cloud, on‑prem, shadow IT and legacy systems.

Identify renewal and deployment pain points: Outages begin with ticket queues, weekend change windows and inconsistent owners.

Implement automation that scales: Auto‑renew and auto‑deploy, keeping validation and governance central.

Establish policy‑driven lifecycle governance: This eliminates variance and replaces heroics with consistent, predictable execution.

 

Managed CLM services can help you get there with maturity, clarity and control.

 

 

Final Word: Confidence Is the New Compliance

In a 47‑day world, CISOs who modernize now will:

  • Reduce operational noise
  • Strengthen resilience
  • Improve audit outcomes
  • Minimize unplanned outages
  • Enable teams to focus on strategic initiatives

 

The mandate is here and the workload is rising, but with the right automation strategy, your risk doesn’t have to.

 

Discover how Optiv helped a leading commercial bank who was facing repeated audit failures and penalties tied to weak signing algorithms, insufficient cipher strength and a broken certificate reporting process achieve resilient certificate reporting and potentially save millions by avoiding penalties or outages.

Optiv Security: Secure greatness.®

Optiv is the cyber advisory and solutions leader, delivering strategic and technical expertise to nearly 6,000 companies across every major industry. We partner with organizations to advise, deploy and operate complete cybersecurity programs from strategy and managed security services to risk, integration and technology solutions. With clients at the center of our unmatched ecosystem of people, products, partners and programs, we accelerate business progress like no other company can. At Optiv, we manage cyber risk so you can secure your full potential. For more information, visit www.optiv.com.