Overview#
Associating a service with a specific certificate or public key to prevent impersonation. Reduces risk from rogue CAs and man-in-the-middle attacks on mobile and web apps.
Core objectives#
- Establish shared definitions of Certificate Pinning for security, engineering, and leadership teams.
- Connect Certificate Pinning activities to measurable risk reduction and resilience goals.
- Provide onboarding notes so new team members can quickly understand how Certificate Pinning works here.
Implementation notes#
- Identify the primary owner for Certificate Pinning, the data sources involved, and the systems affected.
- Document the minimum viable process, tooling, and runbooks that keep Certificate Pinning healthy.
- Map Certificate Pinning practices to standards such as ISO/IEC 27001, NIST CSF, or CIS Controls.
Operational signals#
- Leading indicators: early warnings that Certificate Pinning might degrade (e.g., backlog growth, noisy alerts, or missed SLAs).
- Lagging indicators: realized impact that shows Certificate Pinning failed or needs investment (e.g., incidents, audit findings).
- Feedback loops: retrospectives and metrics reviews that tune Certificate Pinning continuously.
Related practices#
- Align Certificate Pinning with defense-in-depth planning, threat modeling, and disaster recovery tests.
- Communicate updates to stakeholders through concise briefs, dashboards, and internal FAQs.
- Pair Certificate Pinning improvements with tabletop exercises to validate expectations.