Put every renewal date in one calendar
Domains, certificates, licences, support contracts and payment cards all expire. Most outages from them are just forgotten dates.
Some of the worst outages I’ve seen weren’t attacks. A domain expired because the card on file had changed. A firewall’s security subscription lapsed and it quietly stopped updating. A support contract ended the week a server died. A certificate on a device nobody remembered.
All of these have a date you can know in advance.
- Make one shared calendar, or one sheet, with every renewal: domains, certificates that aren’t automated, software licences, hardware support, cloud commitments, insurance.
- Set two reminders for each: a month before and a week before.
- Assign an owner for each, and a backup.
- Note the payment card used. Card expiry is a renewal date too.
- Review the list each quarter, and add anything new the day it’s bought.
It’s the least technical security task there is, and it prevents real downtime.