In theory, yes. In practice, I don't know of any CA which guarantees continuity of intermediate certificates. In fact, some explicitly say they may rotate int

In theory, yes. In practice, I don't know of any CA which guarantees continuity of intermediate certificates. In fact, some explicitly say they may rotate intermediates at any time. So the footgun is much worse than you describe: even if a CA doesn't go out of business, they may discontinue the intermediate you were pinning. See here for a real-world example of what can go wrong when you pin to intermediates: https://cabforum.org/pipermail/public/2016-November/008989.html https://cabforum.org/pipermail/public/2016-November/008989.h... (in this case, things worked out OK for the customer, but only because Symantec was willing to intentionally break the rules)