WELCOME

France, Croatia, Brazil, Sweden, Uruguay, Russia, Belgium...

For our partners worldwide, this fourth issue of our DigiCert Partner News comes after World Cup fury and frenzy has finally subsided. Since our network Certified Partners is global, now we can safely communicate without the sporting noise of national pride blocking our shot. So let's put our feet on the field and get this ball rolling!

Onward and upward!

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Sneak Peek

You've seen our emphatic efforts to be more transparent and regular in our outbound communications with you, and that's just one in a series of material upgrades to our partner program.

First, both existing and new partners benefitted from the launch of our new Certified Partner Program - and along with it, more regular and open communications like this newsletter. Now, we're rolling out our Partner Marketing Portal (see article further below). Next, we're already moving steadily towards launching a totally new account/certificate management portal and API, opening for general availability and ensuing migration, with a target of later this year.

Well ahead of eventually welcoming all of our partners to migrate to the new portal, we successfully achieved early dev releases of the CertCentral-based partner API on 11 July. We extended a few exclusive invitations to select partners to try this testable sneak-peek in order to gain early directional input. Their collective feedback will propel us towards our "open beta," targeted for late September. Of course, you don't have to wait until then: for a demo of the new partner API, simply contact your account manager.

Around the World at 2018 Partner Roundtables Last month, we launched the 2018 cycle of annual Partner Roundtable events, which are another exclusive benefit for Platinum Elite and Platinum partners. Our first in the series was for Americas partners, during the week of 11 June in Miami, Florida in the United States. The event culminated in a day jam-packed with knowledge-sharing from across the DigiCert organization, including our corporate and sales leadership. Here's what we covered, and what can be anticipated in the remaining 2 regional roundtables as we work eastward around our global partner network:

• Product/development updates
• Industry/market news
• Authentication & support briefings
• Strategic R&D insights
• Marketing, branding and product strategies
• An open Q&A session featuring a cross-functional panel from our leadership team
• Awards for our top-achieving partners

We look forward to sharing with our most strategic and best-performing European, Middle Eastern and African partners (Reykjavik, Iceland during 17-21 September) and our Asian and Pacific partners (Osaka, Japan during 12-16 November). Talk to your account manager if you’re interested in achieving a more profitable tier of partnership.

Marketing Portal Now LIVE!

On 31 May, we opened our new Partner Marketing Portal on the Zift Solutions platform, which can enhance your partnership experience. Our valued partners in the Gold, Platinum and Platinum Elite tiers are welcome to register for complimentary access to the intuitive user interface, personalized web content, insightful lead profiling/reporting, robust performance analytics, and CRM and app integrations. Please register for a one-on-one onboarding session with a Zift partner manager to set up your account and receive training for the new platform. For further information, contact your account manager or Ryan White on our Partner Marketing team.

Follow Our Feed

Did you know that our Partner Blog also features an RSS feed? The feed allows you to use an RSS reader to keep up to speed, instead of visiting the blog itself. It’s easy to subscribe to our Partner Blog’s RSS feed. First, you just need an RSS reader to subscribe-to and read RSS feeds. Second, subscribe by visiting our Partner Blog's RSS feed from your RSS reader

UPCOMING EVENTS

Events

• EMEA Partner Roundtable.  17-21 September in Reykjavik, Iceland.
• DigiCert NEXT conference, dedicated exclusively to IoT, PKI, Blockchain and the future of digital security.  17-19 October in San Diego, California, USA.
• APAC Partner Roundtable.  12-16 November in Osaka, Japan.

Webcasts

• Live: DigiCert Monthly Threat Briefing. 27 September at 9:00 AM MDT. Register here.
• On Demand: Creating a Better Way Forward for SSL, PKI and IoT Security. Register here.
• On Demand: DigiCert Monthly Threat Briefing for July. Register here.
• Live: DigiCert Monthly Threat Briefing. 30 August at 9:00 AM MDT. Register here.

TECH CORNER

New Code Signing Hierarchy

To modernize and streamline our code signing certificate offerings, plus to confidently advance the integration of former Website Security infrastructure with DigiCert platforms, we will update our code signing PKI hierarchy. We intend to issue all new code signing certificates from DigiCert’s hierarchy by 31 October 2018.

Although these changes apply to new certificates for all code signing products, there is no impact to existing code signing certificates or the validity of signed files, whether timestamped or otherwise. Existing code signing certificates are valid until their expiration dates. Files already signed are still viewed as secure and verified.

Certain additional changes will result for specific use cases, platforms and brands. If these may affect the products you currently offer, we will provide details within the week in a separate email notification

210-Day Renewal Window

To assist towards final reissuance of all certificates issued before 1 December 2017 across the GeoTrust, Symantec, RapidSSL and Thawte brands, any certificate can be renewed early - up to 210 days before its expiration, if the renewal is for 1 year.  We will round-up the remaining days on your renewed certificate to the next full number of months. Read more here.

Apple Distrusts SSL/TLS Certs Omitted from CT Logs

Adding to its existing distrust plan, Apple now requires SSL/TLS certificates to be logged for Certificate Transparency (CT), effective 20 July 2018. Any certificates which are opted-out of CT logs will be distrusted across the MacOS operating system and apps, the iOS operating system and apps, and the Safari browser. We urge that immediate action is taken on all GeoTrust, RapidSSL, Symantec and Thawte certificates which are currently not CT logged, regardless of whether or not those certificates have already been reissued to comply with Google and Mozilla distrust plans. Please reach out to affected customers and reissue the affected certificates for them with CT logging enabled.

USEFUL LINKS

• Help keep our partnership healthy with our Partner Best Practices and our Partner Guide to Certificate Validation Management
• Encourage team and customer usage of our free SSL Tools
• Visit our Partner Blog or subscribe to its RSS feed
• Find platform release details in our Product Activity Log
• Get timely technical support from our TLS/SSL Tech Support team
• Access all the PartnerPRO program materials available to you via DigiCert Partner Marketing Portal.
• If you just don't know who to contact, just contact your Account Manager or our Partner Marketing team
• Do you have a suggestion for improving this newsletter? Is there something specific you would like to see in the next issue? Do you want to add or change an email address? Just contact Jeff Barto: Email and LinkedIn
• Contact SSL Partner Support