Sectigo incident report: OCSP response signing delays caused by certstatus-manager restart loop
Sectigo reported an incident involving delays in signing OCSP responses for some newly issued certificates after its certstatus-manager application began restarting repeatedly. The company said it first noticed spikes in its OCSP replication system on 2026-06-15 and later received a support ticket and a Certificate Problem Report on 2026-06-17 about “unauthorized” OCSP responses. Sectigo’s investigation found that some OCSP responses had been signed by its HSMs but did not make it to publication, and that its OCSP refresher signing backstop had accumulated backlog because of the restart loop. In the full report, Sectigo said the non-compliance began on 2026-06-13 and ended on 2026-06-17, and that the issue affected the timely signing of OCSP responses for a small number of newly issued certificates. Sectigo later stated that all action items had been completed and requested closure of the incident report. The bug remains ASSIGNED and a final call for comments was posted on 2026-07-31.
- certstatus-manager restart loop began, creating OCSP signing backlog
- restart loop was resolved, but some newly issued certificates had already experienced OCSP signing delays
- Sectigo received a support ticket and a CPR about “unauthorized” OCSP responses
- Sectigo identified that some OCSP responses for newly issued certificates had not been signed successfully
- Sectigo said all action items were completed and requested closure
- Sectigo — Filed a preliminary incident report describing the certstatus-manager restart loop, the OCSP signing backlog, and the CPR about “unauthorized” OCSP responses.
- Sectigo — Posted the full incident report with timeline, impact, and explanation that the refresher backlog delayed signing for some newly issued certificates.
- Sectigo — Requested a next update date of 2026-07-31 while remaining action items were still open.
- Sectigo — Stated that all action items had been completed and requested closure of the incident report.
- CCADB representative — Posted a final call for comments or questions and said the report would be closed around 2026-08-07.