Trust is the foundation of every online interaction—from checking your bank balance to uploading documents to a client portal. But what happens when that trust is exploited? At CyberStreams, we work with small businesses like law firms, universities, non-profits, and manufacturers to stay secure in an increasingly hostile cyber environment. Now, an important change is coming that every business should understand.

A New Era in Certificate Security

On March 15, 2025, the CA/Browser Forum—the governing body behind SSL certificate standards—unanimously approved a groundbreaking change: Multi-Perspective Issuance Corroboration (MPIC). This new standard aims to close a serious gap in domain validation procedures used by Certificate Authorities (CAs), the organizations responsible for issuing web certificates.

Why This Matters

Traditionally, CAs like DigiCert verified a website's domain ownership by checking a specific file placed on the site—often from just a single geographic location. This process worked, until it didn’t.

Research from Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy revealed that Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) attacks can hijack internet traffic. In doing so, hackers can fool CAs into thinking they’re talking to the real website when they're not, allowing the attackers to obtain fraudulent certificates. These fake certificates can then be used to impersonate websites and steal sensitive data. One such BGP-based attack led to $2 million in losses, according to Google’s Chrome Root Program.

Enter MPIC: Multi-Layered Defense

MPIC tackles this vulnerability head-on. It requires CAs to validate domains from multiple geographic perspectives—starting with two locations now, and scaling up to five by the end of 2026. These validation checks must span at least two Regional Internet Registry (RIR) regions. The goal is simple: make it virtually impossible for attackers to manipulate all validation points at once.

However, this added security layer comes with its own challenge.

Geo-Fencing: A Double-Edged Sword

Some small businesses, especially those with a local focus, restrict website access to certain countries—a tactic called geo-fencing—to reduce their attack surface. For example, a photography business might block non-U.S. traffic to avoid spam and hacking attempts. But with MPIC, this same restriction can backfire. If global validation checks are blocked, your site could fail to renew its SSL certificate, resulting in downtime or alarming browser warnings.

How This Affects Your Business

Whether you’re logging into your vendor portal, handling online donations, or accessing legal documents, your website needs to be trusted. MPIC is a major step forward in making that trust harder to compromise.

But you must be prepared. With 60% of small businesses experiencing cyber disruptions annually (Cybersecurity Ventures, 2024), ignoring MPIC could put your operations at risk.

That’s where CyberStreams comes in. We can help you adapt your infrastructure and policies to align with this new standard, ensuring your site remains secure, compliant, and uninterrupted.

Three Key Takeaways & Next Steps

1. Review Your Geo-Fencing Rules
Make sure your site doesn’t block global traffic needed for MPIC validation. If it does, you may need to update those rules.

2. Monitor Certificate Renewals
Stay ahead of potential disruptions by setting alerts for SSL certificate issues and ensuring your certificates renew smoothly.

3. Enhance Web Security
Go beyond certificates, deploy advanced DNS protections and firewalls to shield your site from BGP hijacks and other threats.

Conclusion

The internet’s trust model is evolving, and so should your approach to cybersecurity. MPIC offers a critical defense against a growing wave of certificate-based attacks, but only if your systems are ready for it. Don’t wait for your site to go dark or become a target. Take proactive steps now to stay ahead of the curve—and stay trusted online.

At CyberStreams, we’re here to help you navigate this change with confidence.