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Author: Dionisie Gitlan

I've been writing for SSL Dragon for over 10 years, focusing entirely on SSL certificates and digital security. My job is to take complex cybersecurity topics and strip away the jargon, making sure you get the clear, practical information you need to keep your website safe.

Articles by Dionisie Gitlan

10 SSL Incidents That Prove Certificate Automation Was Inevitable

The cybersecurity crowd loves to pitch certificate automation as some sleek, forward-thinking upgrade for the modern web. But let’s be real: we didn’t get here because everyone suddenly became proactive. We got here because the industry kept messing up. Automation isn’t a reward for good behavior; it’s an intervention. For years,we’ve seen a spectacular parade […]

Why Certificate Automation Still Has Low Adoption

Certificate automation is a solved problem. The tools exist, the CAs support them, and most IT teams understand the risk of going manual. Yet 38% of organizations still manage certificates with spreadsheets, and 70% admit they don’t have the staff to keep up. The gap between what’s available and what’s adopted isn’t a technical story. […]

Why the Post-Quantum Certificate Challenge Is Bigger Than Shorter Validity

The SSL industry already has one countdown on the wall. By 2029, the old annual renewal rhythm will be gone. Certificates will expire faster, automation will be mandatory, and businesses still running on calendar reminders will fall behind. That challenge, at least, is legible. The harder problem is not about time. It’s about visibility. Post-quantum […]

Let’s Encrypt Pauses Certificate Issuance After Internal Error

On May 8, 2026, Let’s Encrypt temporarily stopped issuing certificates after detecting an internal error in its certificate system. Existing certificates remained valid, but new requests and automated renewals were affected during the interruption. Service was later restored after Let’s Encrypt changed the affected issuance path. What Happened Inside Let’s Encrypt? The interruption traced back […]

Why The SSL Market Is No Longer Selling Encryption

If SSL certificates were only about encryption, the paid market should have collapsed by now. Basic HTTPS is everywhere. Free DV certificates protect ordinary websites. Hosting panels turn SSL into a checkbox. Browsers no longer treat encrypted pages as special; they flag unencrypted ones as broken. Yet paid SSL still exists. The market thrives because […]

Best Code Signing Certificate Providers in 2026

Picking a code signing certificate provider is harder than it should be. Four publicly-trusted Certificate Authorities cover almost every legitimate buying scenario: Sectigo, Comodo, DigiCert, and GoGetSSL. At first glance they all look similar. They issue the same X.509 certificates, follow the same CA/Browser Forum rules, and ship hardware tokens that meet the same FIPS […]

From 398 Days to 47: What the New SSL Certificate Lifetimes Mean

SSL certificate validity is changing, and the shift has already started. The industry is moving away from long-lived certificates and toward much shorter lifetimes, forcing a different approach to how you manage SSL/TLS. This is not a minor update. Reduced SSL validity increases the frequency at which you issue certificates, validate domains, and handle renewals. […]

Behind the Tickets: What Really Makes SSL Errors Difficult to Debug

SSL certificates are often treated as a set-and-forget layer of infrastructure. Once installed, browsers stay quiet, and encryption fades into the background. From a support perspective, reality looks very different. Behind routine installations sits a steady flow of tickets where certificates are technically valid, correctly deployed, and still failing in ways that aren’t immediately visible. […]

CRT vs CER File Extensions Explained

You’ve just received your SSL certificate files and notice two extensions: .crt and .cer. Your server expects one, your certificate authority (CA) sent the other. Before you start troubleshooting, here’s the short answer: both file extensions hold the same X.509 certificate data, and the difference is mostly a naming convention. But “mostly” is doing some […]

Why Multi-Certificate Environments Break TLS Mental Models

At SSL Dragon, we work with SSL certificates across a wide range of environments, from simple single-domain sites to modern stacks where TLS is deliberately spread across multiple layers. Over time, that range makes one thing clear: TLS itself is stable, but the way it’s understood hasn’t kept pace with its evolution. Today, HTTPS commonly […]

Tutorials by Dionisie Gitlan

How to Generate a CSR on FileMaker Server

This tutorial shows you how to generate a CSR on FileMaker Server. FileMaker Server creates the request itself, either from the Admin Console or with the fmsadmin command line tool, and writes two files into its own CStore folder: the certificate signing request you send to your Certificate Authority, and the matching private key that […]

How to Generate a CSR on F5 products

This guide shows you how to generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) on F5 BIG-IP. The same workflow covers every BIG-IP module that terminates TLS (LTM, APM, GTM/DNS, ASM/Advanced WAF), since they all share the TMOS certificate store. The main path uses the BIG-IP Configuration utility (TMUI); a short section near the end shows the […]

How to Generate a CSR on BigCommerce

This tutorial explains how to generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) on BigCommerce. A CSR is a block of encoded text that you submit to a Certificate Authority (CA) when applying for an SSL certificate. It contains your domain and organization details, along with a public key that will be embedded in the certificate.

How to Generate a CSR on Aruba ClearPass

This guide shows you how to generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) on Aruba ClearPass Policy Manager (CPPM). ClearPass is HPE Aruba Networking’s AAA / network access control appliance, so the CSR is created entirely in the web admin console, without shell access. The steps below apply to CPPM 6.x, including the current 6.12 line, […]

How to Generate a CSR on Android

This tutorial shows you how to generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) for Android with the Java keytool utility. Android does not generate public-CA TLS CSRs on the phone itself: a public-CA certificate is issued for a server (or a device the user controls), and Android apps and browsers consume it. The keytool flow below […]

How to Generate the CSR on Alpha Anywhere

This tutorial explains how to generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) on Alpha Anywhere, formerly known as Alpha Five. Alpha Anywhere includes a built-in CSR generator in its Application Server, so you can create the CSR and private key directly from the admin interface without external tools.

How to Generate a CSR on 4D Server

In this tutorial, you will learn how to generate a CSR on 4D Server. On 4D you have three ways to create one: our online CSR Generator, the OpenSSL command line, or 4D’s own built-in certificate commands.

How to Generate CSR on Zyxel Zywall USG

This guide shows you how to generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) on a Zyxel ZyWALL/USG firewall from the web configurator. The same procedure works on the classic ZyWALL and USG line (USG 20, 40, 60, 110, 210, 310, 1100) and on the current USG Flex, ATP, and VPN series running ZLD firmware, since they […]

How to Generate a CSR on Synology NAS

This tutorial shows you how to generate a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) on a Synology NAS running DSM 7 (the flow is the same from DSM 7.2 through DSM 7.4, the line Synology released in June 2026). The wizard inside DiskStation Manager creates a PKCS #10 request and a matching private key in one step, […]