Attributed metadata history
Up to 100 retained publisher events per page for 0d67c2ab732d2457c2494e7a3edf5acc076282b68a7cfd6e073079e05dc78414. Withdrawals and unavailable references remain attributed to their publishers.
intelligence_src_823f7b237762257237
observed · 2026-10-12 12:09:04 UTC
Every night, right around midnight (mainly UTC), a horde of zombies wakes up and clamors for … digital certificates! The zombies in question are abandoned or misconfigured Internet servers and ACME clients that have been set to request certificates from Let’s Encrypt. As our certificates last for at most 90 days, these zombie clients’ software knows that their certificates are out-of-date and need to be replaced. What they don’t realize is that their quest for new certificates is doomed! These devices are cursed to seek certificates again and again, never receiving them. But they do use up a lot of certificate authority resources in the process. The Zombie Client Problem Unlike a human being, software doesn’t give up in frustration, or try to modify its approach, when it repeatedly fails at the same task. Our emphasis on automation means that the vast majority of Let’s Encrypt certificate renewals are performed by automated software. This is great when those renewals succeed, but it also means that forgotten clients and devices can continue requesting renewals unsuccessfully for months, or even years. How might that happen? Most often, it happen
Fingerprint: d061d7bad6addae5717a355e3b8f30fa3d2f8cbbcfbb2728c9b2db50ac098e87
intelligence_src_823f7b237762257237
observed · 2026-10-12 12:09:04 UTC
available
Fingerprint: 3ee9ede72037d42a31a54231e2db3aca2f948cab8548bb5974fefbf1d8cf8232