The non-profit certificate authority Let's Encrypt has amended its user agreement, adding a ban on issuing SSL certificates to residents of countries under full-scale US sanctions. These countries include Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, as well as Crimea, LNR, and DNR. Russia is not subject to a full embargo, so the new restrictions will primarily affect government entities.
An SSL certificate is a website's digital passport that ensures a secure connection and displays a lock icon in the browser's address bar. Without it, foreign browsers may issue a warning about an insecure connection.
The director of the ISRG organization, which founded the project, explained that private individuals and non-governmental companies from the Russian Federation will continue to receive Let's Encrypt certificates. According to him, the changes made merely document a long-standing practice to fulfill legal formalities, and no new blockages will follow. The ability to provide certificates for non-governmental institutions in sanctioned territories is ensured by US laws on the protection of private correspondence and concessions adopted to promote human rights and freedoms on the internet.
The changes in Let's Encrypt's rules are a consequence of new requirements from the global CA/Browser Forum consortium, which unites the largest certificate authorities and browser developers, including Google, Apple, and Microsoft. As of May 4, 2026, checking against sanction lists has become mandatory, not recommendatory, for certification authorities. As a result, the Japanese certification authority GlobalSign, which previously held about 90% of the commercial market in Russia, began the forced revocation of SSL certificates from Russian companies on June 13, which, according to experts, will affect up to 20,000 domains.
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