Technical Definition of SSL/TLS Monitoring
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) monitoring, or TLS (Transport Layer Security) monitoring, is the process of auditing web server certificates to ensure they are valid, correctly configured, and unexpired. This is done by initiating automated TLS handshakes from global check nodes, verifying that certificates are trusted by client browsers.
A standard web server uses certificates to encrypt communications. However, these certificates expire (often in 90 days), intermediate chains can break, or self-signed certs can accidentally deploy to production, causing browsers to block traffic with warnings.
Key Security Audit Steps
- Expiry Calculations: Tracking certificate expiration dates.
- Chain of Trust Validation: Verifying root path completeness back to a trusted CA.
- Hostname Verification: Ensuring hostnames match the names authorized on the certificate.
- Cipher Auditing: Flagging insecure cipher configurations (e.g. SSLv3 or weak keys).