ColdFusion 9- I/O Exception: peer not authenticate

There is no longer official support for ColdFusion 9. But it remains a Java application. So what the heck, if you're willing to take risks, try the following.

Imitate the steps in the following archived page: https://web.archive.org/web/20200927173340/http://www.trunkful.com/index.cfm/2014/12/8/Preventing-SSLv3-Fallback-in-ColdFusion

The page was by someone who succeeded in getting ColdFusion 9 to work on Java 8. Incidentally, I think the flag -Dhttps.protocols=TLSv1.2,TLSv1.1,TLSv1 is preferable to -Dhttps.protocols=TLSv1.2

Besides what BKBK offers, I will say that updating the jvm should have been all you needed. I know you feel you did it. It's easy to do it wrong. I have lengthy blog posts on both topics above.

Then you say you updated cf9, and while that may have been valuable, that too is something you could get wrong, and I have blog posts on that, from that era.

I also have one from last month on devastating ransomeware attacks hitting cf9--though getting the cf9 updates from 2010 would address that. Still, as BKBK notes, it's very unwise for many reasons to remain on any cf version that no longer gets Adobe security updates, which is not only 9 and earlier but also 10, or 11, and 2016.

Anyway, you say you're need is urgent, so you don't likely want to deal with that upgrade to cf2021 or 2018 (let alone pay for the new license) right now, nor read a bunch of blog posts. I will add that I could help you get it all running today, possibly in as little as 15 mins (you may be very close to it working) or it might take an hour or two (if in your cf9 update efforts you may have messed things up, which was easy before cf10 added the new automated update process). You can learn more of my services and book time at carehart.org/consulting.

While I'm traveling today, I could make time for an emergency in the afternoon US eastern time though it's blocked out for now. If interested in that, email me instead at support at carehart.org.

If you can't or won't "pay for help", still send me an email if you want me to list all the blog post urls I'd mentioned above. I'm writing this on a phone and it would be too tedious to gather now. And emailing me would ensure I see you request for that.

Hope you get your problem resolved soon, and that you'll get off of such an old cf instance as soon as you can. 

Long story short: move to a newer ColdFusion version, for example, 2021.

ColdFusion 9 is too old for the API you're trying to consume. CF9's Java version and security libraries are outdated. See the Java versions corresponding to CF9.

I appreciate how dificult it can be to persuade IT decision-makers to upgrade. Besides the financial considerations, there is the risk of disruption. I shall therefore give you some justification for upgrading.

Most APIs and web services move along with the times, requiring you, the consumer, to use the latest Java and TLS. You can confirm this for the sms.itpark service.

Go to the site https://www.ssllabs.com/ . Enter https://sms.itpark.pk and press the Submit button. Wait for the analysis to complete.

You can see that the site scores highly on the SSL scan (Grade A). The scan results also show that the site only accepts TLS v1.2 or above.

TLS1.0 and TLS1.1 are disabled by default from JDK11.0.11 and JDK1.8.0_291 onwards. You could interpret this as a minimum requirement for the sms.itpark site. However, as you have seen. CF9 is on JDK1.6 / JDK1.7, which don't support TLS v1.2.