Building a certificate authority for the whole Internet
6 hours ago
- Cloudflare announces plans to become a public certificate authority (CA) to issue trusted TLS certificates.
- They have applied for inclusion in major root programs (Chrome, Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla) and signed a deal to acquire GlobalSign's established root for immediate broad device compatibility.
- Cloudflare will offer free, automated certificates via ACME protocol, aiming to provide redundancy to the current dominant free CA, Let's Encrypt.
- They plan to be among the first CAs to issue post-quantum Merkle Tree Certificates (MTCs), targeting production issuance in early 2027.
- The CA will prioritize resilience with fail-small design, mandatory ARI-based renewal automation, transparent operations, and public dashboards.
- Cloudflare will act as 'Customer Zero,' first using its own certificates before offering them to customers, while continuing partnerships with existing CAs.