Indian Digital Trust Firm eMudhra Announces Exit from Global SSL/TLS Business; Shares Drop 36% in Two Days
Listed Indian firm eMudhra announces its exit from the global SSL/TLS certificate business after a critical private key vulnerability led to browser blocks, causing its shares to plunge 36% over two trading sessions.
Indian digital trust services provider eMudhra (NSE: EMUD) announced on October 22, 2026, that it will voluntarily withdraw from its global SSL/TLS certificate business. The decision follows a severe security incident where researchers discovered that the private keys associated with eight of the company's Intermediate Certificate Authorities (CAs) were critically weak and easily compromised.
The flaw originated from a key-generation error in April 2025. According to reports by The Times of India, Kaushik Srinivasan, co-founder of eMudhra, stated that delays in hardware procurement for North American operations forced the company to generate keys in India and export them. A script error combined with inadequate maker-checker controls resulted in weak keys, some of which could be recovered as simple integers (such as 4, 56, etc.), potentially allowing attackers to forge website certificates and impersonate legitimate sites.
Major browsers including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple Safari quickly blocked the affected certificates following the disclosure. India's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) issued an advisory, and India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology formed a special investigation team. Although eMudhra emphasized that its infrastructure was not breached and no data was leaked, the reputational damage has had tangible commercial consequences.
Financially, the SSL/TLS business contributed only about 1% of the company's global revenue. However, rising compliance costs, increased scrutiny, and competition from providers offering free certificates made continued operation economically unattractive. The market reaction was sharp: eMudhra's share price fell from Rs 539 at Monday's close to Rs 345 by Thursday's close, a cumulative drop of 36% over two trading sessions. The company plans to redirect resources toward higher-margin businesses such as enterprise identity management and electronic signature solutions.