Change log: 2022

To make it easier to plan your certificate-related tasks, we scheduled our 2022 maintenance windows in advance. See DigiCert 2022 scheduled maintenance—this page is updated with all current maintenance schedule information.

With customers worldwide, we understand there is not a "best time" for everyone. However, after reviewing the data on customer usage, we selected times that would impact the fewest amount of our customers.

About our maintenance schedule

If you need more information regarding these maintenance windows, contact your account manager or DigiCert Support.

To simplify the domain control validation (DCV) workflow for OV and EV TLS certificates, we've improved our random value generation process for OV and EV certificate orders.

Now, when using DCV methods that require a random value to complete the domain validation for your OV or EV TLS orders, you receive a single random value that you can use to complete the DCV check for every domain on the order.

This change brings the DCV workflow for OV and EV orders into closer alignment with DV orders, which have always returned a single random value for all domains on the order.

Affected DCV methods:

To improve API workflows for clients using DCV methods that require a random value for OV and EV TLS certificate orders, we made the following enhancements to the CertCentral Services API.

{
  "id": 12345,
  "dcv_random_value": "ab12cdef345gh6i78jklmnop901qrs23",1
  "domains": [
    {
      "id": 1469,
      "name": "example.com",
      "dns_name": "example.com",
      "dcv_token": {
        "token": "ab12cdef345gh6i78jklmnop901qrs23",
        "status": "pending",
        "expiration_date": "2023-08-16T01:16:29+00:00"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": 1469,
      "name": "example.com",
      "dns_name": "sub.example.com",
      "dcv_token"2: {
        "token": "ab12cdef345gh6i78jklmnop901qrs23",
        "status": "pending",
        "expiration_date": "2023-08-16T01:16:29+00:00"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": 1470,
      "name": "example.org",
      "dns_name": "example.org",
      "dcv_token": {
        "token"3: "ab12cdef345gh6i78jklmnop901qrs23",
        "status": "pending",
        "expiration_date": "2023-08-16T01:16:29+00:00"
      }
    }
  ],
  "certificate_id": 123456
}

{
  ...
  "higher_level_domains": [
    {
      "name": "sub.example.com",
      "id": 4316203,
      "dcv_expiration_datetime": "2023-12-04T04:08:50+00:00"
    },
    {
      "name": "example.com",
      "id": 4316205,
      "dcv_expiration_datetime": "2023-12-04T04:08:49+00:00"
    }
  ],
  ...
}

https://www.digicert.com/services/v2/domain/{{domain_id}}?include_dcv=true

To give API clients access to more information about the verified contacts that exist for an organization, we added a new array to the Organization info API response: verified_contacts.

The new verified_contacts array provides a list of objects with details about each verified contact that exists for the organization. The verified_contacts array:

{
... 
 "verified_contacts": [
    {
      "id": 942858,
      "name": "Jane Doe",
      "first_name": "Jane",
      "last_name": "Doe",
      "job_title": "Site Reliability Engineer",
      "telephone": "1234567890",
      "email": "jane.doe@example.com",
      "verified_roles": [
        {
          "validation_type": "EV",
          "status": "pending"
        },
        {
          "validation_type": "CS",
          "status": "pending"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
...
}

We fixed a bug where submitting a verified contact with multiple validation types (for example, CS and EV) caused duplicate verified contacts to be created for the organization, one for each validation type. This bug affected verified contacts submitted through the CertCentral console or through the CertCentral Services API.

Now, when you submit verified contacts with multiple validation types, we assign each validation type to the same verified contact, instead of creating a duplicate.

On December 6, 2022, at 10:00 MST (17:00 UTC), DigiCert will no longer issue EV Code Signing certificates with a permanent identifier value in the Subject Alternative Name field.

What do I need to do?

Does your EV code signing process expect to find the permanent identifier when parsing your issued EV Code Signing certificates?

Does this change affect my existing EV Code Signing certificates?

This change does not affect existing EV Code Signing certificates with a permanent identifier value in the Subject Alternative Name field. However, if you reissue an EV Code Signing certificate after the change on December 6, 2022, your reissued certificate will not contain a permanent identifier.

Background

The permanent identifier is a unique code for EV code signing certificates that includes information about the certificate subject’s jurisdiction of incorporation and registration information. In 2016, the CA/Browser Forum removed the permanent identifier requirement from EV Code Signing certificates.

Starting December 6, 2022, DigiCert will require organizations on Code Signing (CS) and EV Code Signing (EV CS) certificate orders to have a verified contact.

This change was originally scheduled for October 19, 2022. However, we postponed the change to December 6, 2022. For more information, see the October 19, 2022 change log entry.

Learn more:

DigiCert will perform scheduled maintenance on December 3, 2022, 22:00 – 24:00 MST (December 4, 2022, 05:00 – 07:00 UTC).

Although we have redundancies to protect your services, some DigiCert services may be unavailable during this time.

DigiCert will perform scheduled maintenance on November 5, 2022, 22:00 –24:00 MDT (November 6, 2022, 04:00 – 06:00 UTC). Although we have redundancies to protect your services, some DigiCert services may be unavailable during this time.

We updated the Prove control over your domain popup window for pending DV orders, making it easier to see what you need to do to complete the domain validation for all domains included on your certificate.

Now, when you select a domain control validation (DCV) method, you can see basic instructions for completing the domain validation along with a link to more detailed instructions on our product documentation website.

See for yourself

Improved Prove control over your domain popup window

DigiCert is happy to announce that CertCentral allows you to upgrade your product when renewing your order.

Are you tired of placing a new order and reentering all your information when upgrading to a new product?

Now you don’t have to. We’ve improved our order renewal process so you can upgrade your product when renewing your certificate order.

Don’t see that option to upgrade your product when renewing your order, or already have the products you need and don’t want to see the option to upgrade?

Don’t worry; you can enable and disable this feature as needed. When ready to upgrade, you can enable it to save the hassle of placing a new order. When done, you can disable it until the next time you want to upgrade a product. See Upgrade product on renewal settings.

DigiCert is happy to announce that we updated the Code Signing and EV Code Signing request forms making it easier to view and add organization-related information when ordering a certificate.

This update allows you to select an organization and review the contacts associated with that organization or enter a new organization and assign contacts to the new organization.

Changes to note

Before, you could only see and select an existing organization and could not see the contacts assigned to the organization.

See for yourself

In your CertCentral account, in the left main menu, go to Request a Certificate > Code Signing or Request a Certificate > EV Code Signing to see the updates to the request forms.

When reissuing your code signing certificate, we now include the Subject Email Address on your reissued certificate. Adding a subject email is optional and only available in enterprise accounts.

Note that we will not include the subject email address in the reissued certificate if the domain validation on that email domain has expired.

Background

When you order a code signing certificate, you can include an email address on your code signing certificate—subject email. Including an email address on the certificate provides an additional layer of trust for end users when checking your code signing signature.

See Order a Code Signing certificate.

We are happy to announce that you can now make the Additional emails field a required field on CertCentral, Guest URL, and Guest Access request forms.

Tired of missing important expiring certificate notifications because the certificate owner is on vacation or no longer works for your organization?

The change helps prevent you from missing important notifications, including order renewal and expiring certificate notifications when the certificate owner is unavailable.

See for yourself:

To change this setting for CertCentral request forms:

To change this setting for Guest Access:

To change this setting for Guest URLs:

On October 20, 2022, the RSS feed for the docs.digicert.com change log is going down due to a platform migration.

It will return. Check back here for updates or contact us at docs@digicert.com to be notified when the new RSS feed is available.

Starting October 19, 2022, DigiCert will require organizations on Code Signing (CS) and EV Code Signing (EV CS) certificate orders to have a verified contact.

DigiCert has always required a verified contact from the organization to approve code signing certificate orders before we issue the certificate. Today, DigiCert can add a verified contact to an organization during the validation process. After October 19, verified contacts must be submitted with the organization.

To make the transition easier, when you submit a request to the Order code signing certificate API endpoint, DigiCert will default to adding the authenticated user (the user who owns the API key in the request) as a verified contact for the organization.

DigiCert will apply this default when:

To avoid a lapse in service, make sure users in your CertCentral account with active API keys have a job title and phone number.

Learn more

We are happy to announce that we updated the DigiCert site seal image and replaced the checkmark with a padlock.

The updated site seal continues to provide your customers with the assurance that your website is secured by DigiCert—the leading provider of digital trust.

In CertCentral, we reorganized and updated the look of the Code Signing and EV Code Signing certificate request forms. These forms are now more consistent with the look and flow of our TLS/SSL certificate request forms.

On the code signing request form, when adding a Subject email address to appear on the certificate, you can now see the validated domains assigned to the organization with which the code signing certificate is associated.

DigiCert will perform scheduled maintenance on October 8, 2022, 22:00 –24:00 MDT (October 9, 2022, 04:00 – 06:00 UTC). Although we have redundancies to protect your services, some DigiCert services may be unavailable during this time.

DigiCert will end support for Cipher-Block-Chaining (CBC) ciphers in TLS connections to our services on October 8, 2022, at 22:00 MDT (October 9, 2022, at 04:00 UTC).

This change affects browser-dependent services and applications relying on CBC ciphers that interact with these DigiCert services:

This change does not affect your DigiCert-brand certificates. Your certificates will continue to work as they always have.

To give you more control over your domain prevalidation workflows, we added a new optional request parameter to the Add domain API endpoint: keep_www. Use this parameter to keep the www. subdomain label when you add a domain using a domain control validation (DCV) method of email, dns-txt-token, or dns-cname-token.

By default, if you are not using file-based DCV, the Add domain endpoint always removes the www. subdomain label from the name value. For example, if you send www.example.com, DigiCert adds example.com to your account and submits it for validation.

To keep the www and limit the scope of the approval to the www subdomain, set the value of the keep_www request parameter to true:

{
  "name": "www.example.com",
  "organization": {
    "id": 12345
  },
  "validations": [
    {
      "type": "ov"
    }
  ],
  "dcv_method": "email",
  "keep_www": true
}

CertCentral supports including a revocation reason when revoking a certificate. Now, you can choose one of the revocation reasons listed below when revoking all certificates on an order or when revoking an individual certificate by ID or serial number.

Supported revocation reasons:

*Note: Selecting Key compromise does not block using the associated public key in future certificate requests. To add the public key to the blocklist and revoke all certificates with the same key, visit problemreport.digicert.com and prove possession of the key.

Revoke immediately

We also added the Revoke this certificate immediately option that allows Administrators to skip the Request and Approval process and revoke the certificate immediately. When this option is deselected, the revocation request appears on the Requests page, where an Administrator must review and approve it before it is revoked.

Background

The Mozilla root policy requires Certificate Authorities (CAs) to include a process for specifying a revocation reason when revoking TLS/SSL certificates. The reason appears in the Certificate Revocation List (CRL). The CRL is a list of revoked digital certificates. Only the issuing CA can revoke the certificate and add it to the CRL.

DigiCert will perform scheduled maintenance on September 10, 2022, 22:00 –24:00 MDT (September 11, 2022, 04:00 – 06:00 UTC). Although we have redundancies to protect your services, some DigiCert services may be unavailable during this time.

In the CertCentral Services API, we added the option to choose a revocation reason when you submit a request to revoke a TLS/SSL certificate.

You can choose a revocation reason when revoking all certificates on an order or when revoking an individual certificate by ID or serial number.

To choose a revocation reason, include the optional revocation_reason parameter in the body of your request.

Example JSON request body:

{
  "revocation_reason": "superseded"
}

For information about each revocation reason, visit the API documentation:

In the CertCentral Services API, we added a new contact_type label for verified contacts: verified_contact.

Use the verified_contact label to identify verified contacts for an organization when you submit a request for an EV TLS, Verified Mark, Code Signing, or EV Code Signing certificate. The updated label applies to all verified contacts, regardless of which product type the order is for.

For example, this JSON payload shows how to use the verified_contact label to add a verified contact to an organization in a new certificate order request:

{
  "certificate": {
    ...
  }
  "organization": {
    "id": 12345,
    "contacts": [
      {
        "contact_type": "verified_contact",
        "user_id": 12345
      }
  },
  ...
}

Note: Before this change, verified contacts were always identified with the label ev_approver. The CertCentral Services API will continue accepting ev_approver as a valid label for verified contacts on EV TLS, VMC, Code Signing, and EV Code Signing certificate orders. The verified_contact label works the same as the ev_approver label, but the name is updated to apply to all products that require a verified contact.

We updated the Order code signing certificate API documentation to describe three ways to add an organization to your Code Signing (CS) or EV Code Signing (EV CS) order requests:

Learn more: Order code signing certificate – CS and EV CS organization validation

DigiCert is happy to announce that CertCentral allows you to modify the common name and subject alternative names (SANs) on pending orders: new, renewals, and reissues.

Tired of canceling an order and placing it again because a domain has a typo? Now, you can modify the common name/SANs directly from a pending order.

Items to note when modifying SANs

See for yourself

See Edit common name and SANs on a pending TLS/SSL order: new, renewals, and reissues.

To make it easier for API clients to get the exact date and time domain validation reuse periods expire, we added new response parameters to the Domain info and List domains API endpoints:

Learn more:

Some DigiCert services will be down for about 15 minutes during scheduled maintenance on August 6, 2022, 22:00 – 24:00 MDT (August 7, 2022, 04:00 – 06:00 UTC).

To give API clients the option to hide unused certificates from API response data, we released new API endpoints to archive and restore certificates. By default, archived certificates do not appear in response data when you submit a request to the List reissues or List duplicates API endpoints.

New API endpoints

Updated API endpoints

We updated the List reissues and List duplicates endpoints to support a new optional URL query parameter: show_archived. If the value of show_archived is true, the response data includes archived certificates. If false (default), the response omits archived certificates.

Some DigiCert services will be down for a total of 20 minutes during scheduled maintenance on July 9, 2022, 22:00 – 24:00 MDT (July 10, 2022, 04:00 – 06:00 UTC).

DigiCert is happy to announce that we improved the layout and design of the Order details page.

We took your feedback and updated the Orders page to make managing your certificates and orders easier throughout their lifecycle.

When we reorganized the information on the Order details page, we didn’t remove anything. So, everything you did before the updates, you can still do now. However, there are a few things you asked for that you can do now that you couldn’t do before.

DigiCert is happy to announce that we improved the CAA resource record checking feature and error messaging for failed checks in CertCentral.

Now, on the order’s details page, if a CAA resource record check fails, we display the check’s status and include improved error messaging to make it easier to troubleshoot problems.

DigiCert is happy to announce that CertCentral bulk domain validation now supports two more domain control validation (DCV) methods: DNS TXT and DNS CNAME.

Remember, domain validation is only valid for 397 days. To maintain seamless certificate issuance, DigiCert recommends completing DCV before the domain's validation expires.

Don't spend extra time submitting one domain at a time for revalidation. Use our bulk domain revalidation feature to submit 2 to 25 domains at a time for revalidation.

DigiCert is happy to announce the following enhancements to the CertCentral Report Library API:

DigiCert will perform scheduled maintenance on June 4, 2022, 22:00 –24:00 MDT (June 5, 2022, 04:00 – 06:00 UTC). Although we have redundancies to protect your services, some DigiCert services may be unavailable during this time.

Update: To give API consumers more time to evaluate the impact of the Order info API response changes on their integrations, we are postponing this update until May 31, 2022. We originally planned to release the changes described below on April 25, 2022.

On May 31, 2022, DigiCert will make the following improvements to the Order info API. These changes remove unused values and update the data structure of the order details object to be more consistent for orders in different states across product types.

For more information and response examples for public TLS, code signing, document signing, and Class 1 S/MIME certificates, see the reference documentation for the Order info endpoint.

If you have questions or need help with these changes, contact your account representative or DigiCert Support.

On May 24, 2022, between 9:00 am and 11:00 am MDT (3:00 pm and 5:00 pm UTC), DigiCert will replace the GeoTrust and RapidSSL intermediate CA (ICA) certificates listed below. We can no longer issue maximum validity (397-day) DV certificates from these intermediates.

See the DigiCert ICA Update KB article.

DigiCert is happy to announce our new key generation service—KeyGen. Use KeyGen to generate and install your client and code signing certificates from your browser. KeyGen can be used on macOS and Windows and is supported by all major browsers.

With KeyGen, you don't need to generate a CSR to order your client and code signing certificates. Place your order without a CSR. Then after we process the order and your certificate is ready, DigiCert sends a "Generate your Certificate" email with instructions on using KeyGen to get your certificate.

We fixed an issue where the Order info API (GET https://www.digicert.com/services/v2/order/certificate/{{order_id}}) returned the wrong data type for the user field when no user is associated with the order. Now, for orders without user data, the Order info endpoint returns an empty user object ("user": {} ) instead of returning an empty array ("user": []).

Update: There is no planned downtime during maintenance on May 7, MDT (May 8, UTC).

DigiCert will perform scheduled maintenance on May 7, 2022, between 22:00 – 24:00 MDT (May 8, 2022, between 04:00 – 06:00 UTC). Although we have redundancies to protect your services, some DigiCert services may be unavailable during this time.

Services will be restored as soon as we complete the maintenance.

We are happy to announce that Multi-year Plans are now available for Verified Mark Certificates (VMCs) in CertCentral and CertCentral Services API.

DigiCert® Multi-year Plans allow you to pay a single discounted price for up to six years of Verified Mark Certificate coverage. With a Multi-year Plan, you pick the duration of coverage you want (up to six years). Until the plan expires, you reissue your certificate at no cost each time it reaches the end of its validity period.

DigiCert is happy to announce our domain locking feature is now available in the CertCentral Services API.

New API endpoints

Updated API endpoints

We updated the response for the Domain info and List domains endpoints to include the following parameters with domain lock details:

To learn more, see:

DigiCert is happy to announce our domain locking feature is now available.

Does your company have more than one CertCentral account? Do you need to control which of your accounts can order certificates for specific company domains?

Domain locking lets you control which of your CertCentral accounts can order certificates for your domains.

How does domain locking work?

DNS Certification Authority Authorization (CAA) resource records allow you to control which certificate authorities can issue certificates for your domains.

With domain locking, you can use this same CAA resource record to control which of your company's CertCentral accounts can order certificates for your domains.

How do I lock a domain?

To lock a domain:

To learn more, see:

From April 5, 2022, MDT, you can no longer upgrade your Symantec, GeoTrust, Thawte, or RapidSSL account to CertCentral™.

If you haven't already moved to DigiCert CertCentral, upgrade now to maintain website security and have continued access to your certificates.

DigiCert will perform scheduled maintenance on April 2, 2022, between 22:00 – 24:00 MDT (April 3, 2022, between 04:00 – 06:00 UTC). During this time, some services may be down for up to two hours.

DigiCert is happy to announce our bulk domain validation feature is now available. Don't spend extra time submitting one domain at a time for revalidation. Use our bulk domain revalidation feature to submit 2 to 25 domains at a time for revalidation.

Remember, domain validation is only valid for 397 days. To maintain seamless certificate issuance, DigiCert recommends completing domain control validation (DCV) ahead of time before the domain's validation expires.

See for yourself

See Domain prevalidation: Bulk domain revalidation.

From March 24, 2022, when you visit SSL Tools, you will see a pop-up message that lets you know SSL Tools is no longer available. We encourage you to use the DigiCert® SSL Installation Diagnostics Tool.

DigiCert Basic OV and EV certificate orders include the DigiCert site seal. Now, you can install the DigiCert site seal on the same site your Basic SSL certificate protects. Site seals provide your customers with the assurance your website is secured by DigiCert—one of the most recognized names in TLS/SSL security.

When you click the site seal, you see additional details about the domain, the organization, the TLS/SSL certificate, and the validation.

Learn how to configure and install your DigiCert site seal

In CertCentral and the CertCentral Services API, you can now use the DNS CNAME domain control validation (DCV) method to validate the domains on your DV certificate order.

To use the DNS CNAME DCV method on your DV certificate order:

To learn more about using the DNS CNAME DCV method:

To make it easier to find information about the domain control validation (DCV) status for domains in your CertCentral account, we added these response parameters to domain objects in the List domains API response:

For more information, see the reference documentation for the List domains endpoint.

DigiCert will perform scheduled maintenance on March 5, 2022, between 22:00 – 24:00 MST (March 6, 2022, between 05:00 – 07:00 UTC). During this time, some services may be down for up to two hours.

In CertCentral and the CertCentral Services API, we updated the EV TLS certificate request process to only send the EV TLS request approval emails to the verified contacts you include on the certificate request.

Add verified contacts to an EV TLS certificate request:

To learn more about EV TLS certificate requests:

As part of our scheduled maintenance on February 12, 2022, 22:00 – 24:00 MST (February 13, 2022, 05:00 - 07:00 UTC), DigiCert is expanding the range of IP addresses we use for our services. These additional IP addresses are part of our efforts to increase service uptime and reduce the need for service downtime during scheduled maintenance.

We updated the Domain info API response to include the expiration_date parameter for the DCV token associated with the domain. Now, when you call the Domain info API and set the value of the include_dcv query parameter to true, the dcv_token object in the response includes the expiration_date of the DCV token for the domain.

{
  ...
  "dcv_token": {
    "token": "91647jw2bx280lr5shkfsxd0pv50ahvg",
    "status": "pending",
    "expiration_date": "2022-02-24T16:25:52+00:00"
  },
  ...
}

CertCentral Administrators can now specify what email domains users can create a CertCentral account for. This helps prevent emails from being sent to non-approved, generic email domains (@gmail.com, @yahoo.com), or domains owned by third parties. If a user attempts to set or change a user email address to a non-approved domain, they receive an error.

Find this setting in Settings > Preferences . Expand Advanced Settings , and look for the Approved email domains section.

We are happy to announce that DigiCert now recognizes three more intellectual property offices for verifying the logo for your VMC certificate. These new offices are in Korea, Brazil, and India.

New approved trademark offices:

Other approved trademark offices:

What is a Verified Mark Certificate?

Verified Mark Certificates (VMCs) are a new type of certificate that allows companies to place a certified brand logo next to the “sender” field in customer inboxes.

Learn more about VMC certificates.

We fixed a bug in the Code Signing (CS) certificate issuance process where we were sending the certificate generation email to only the CS verified contact. This bug only happened when the requestor did not include a CSR with the code signing certificate request.

Now, for orders submitted without a CSR, we send the code signing certificate generation email to:

As we work to align our DV, OV, and EV TLS certificate profiles, we are made a minor change to our OV and EV TLS certificate profiles. On January 25, 2022, we set the Basic Constraints extension to noncritical in our OV and EV TLS certificate profiles.

On the Domains page, in the Validation status dropdown, we updated the Completed / Validated filter to make it easier to find domains with completed and active domain control validation (DCV).

Now, when you search for domains with Completed / Validated DCV, we only return domains with completed and active DCV in your search results. To find domains with expired DCV, use the Expired filter in the Validation status dropdown.

Find domains with completed and active DCV

For the List domains API, we updated the filters[validation]=completed filter to make it easier to find domains validated for OV or EV certificate issuance.

Before, this filter returned all domains with completed DCV checks, even if the domain validation had expired. Now, the filter only returns domains with an active OV or EV domain validation status.

We updated the Domains and Domain details pages to make it easier to track and keep your domains' validation up to date. These updates coincide with last year's industry changes to the domain validation reuse period*. Keeping your domain validation current reduces certificate issuance times: new, reissue, duplicate issues, and renewals.

DigiCert will perform scheduled maintenance on January 8, 2022, between 22:00 – 24:00 MST (January 9, 2022, between 05:00 – 07:00 UTC). Although we have redundancies to protect your service, some DigiCert services may be unavailable during this time.