Case Study: Let's Encrypt achieves scalable, secure high‑volume certificate issuance with Thales Luna Network HSMs

Let’s Encrypt Powers New High-Volume Certificate Authority Service with Thales Luna HSMs

Let’s Encrypt, run by the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG), set out to provide a free, fully automated certificate authority to accelerate web encryption. To meet the need for rapid, massive scale while keeping private keys secure and maintaining high availability, Let’s Encrypt selected Thales and its Luna Network HSMs as the security foundation for their CA infrastructure.

Thales deployed two Luna Network HSM appliances (Luna Network HSM 1700s) to protect private keys and accelerate cryptographic operations, enabling Let’s Encrypt to issue millions of new certificates per month and support more than 12 million active certificates with high reliability. With Thales’ Luna Network HSMs, Let’s Encrypt became the world’s largest certificate authority by issuance volume within a year and expects the HSMs to scale to support up to 250 million active certificates.

Let’s Encrypt

Josh Aas

Executive Director