Certificate-related issues remain one of the biggest security concerns for the modern enterprise. And despite a rapid advancement of new technologies that rely heavily on PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) for security and authentication, most organizations admit to not having an adequate system for managing their PKI, as well as the digital certificates that bind public keys to their authorized users.
2023 EMA Report: SSL/TLS Certificate Security-Management and Expiration Challenges
Not surprisingly, when something goes wrong – resulting in an outage or a security breach – it inevitably leads to finger-pointing and ownership dilemmas. Who is responsible for protecting and governing the digital certificates? Which teams have the knowledge to keep the public key infrastructure healthy? Who has the expertise to develop, implement and maintain an ironclad security policy around issuing certificates? And most importantly, who has the bandwidth to maintain PKI requirements on top of all the other demands that companies already place on their IT teams?
Typically, the entire PKI infrastructure in an organization is governed by the security team, while the management of certificates is delegated to a dedicated PKI team. That is – if an organization is large enough to be able to afford one. If not, which is almost always the case, the tasks of issuing, reviewing, troubleshooting and renewing certificates falls on other IT teams, including application, network, and DevOps teams, who are already overloaded with the myriad tasks required to keep the enterprise and its users up and running. Without a team of dedicated, knowledgeable individuals who are proficient in both technical and policy aspects of PKI infrastructure management, an urgent issue, like an expired certificate, can cause hours, if not days of chaos, causing the business to lose money and depleting customers’ trust in their ability to handle security issues.
Outsourcing PKI management could certainly be an option, but using a managed service can be expensive. Certain organizations have stringent policies in place that do not allow the control of PKI infrastructure to leave the premises, and rightly so – PKI is critical and requires high levels of security considerations (usually, Service Criticality 1 is established). Again, this places the burden of deploying and maintaining certificates on internal teams. Many tools exist to help with certificate management, but they often don’t integrate with other IT solutions. Others require advanced knowledge of programming, PKI, or both – which may not be readily available within the network or DevOps teams. Furthermore, the digital era creates a tremendous need for certification lifecycle automation workflows that cater to industry needs such as DevOps, and integration with self-service tools like ITSM is an absolute necessity in order to satisfy the needs of end users, which conventional certificate management methods fail to accomplish.
AppViewX was designed to make the process of certificate lifecycle management effective and painless for organizations of all types and sizes. Our low-code CLM automation tool lets you simplify the management of your certificates using pre-built tasks and workflows. AppViewX solutions integrate with ITSM tools, such as BMC Remedy and ServiceNow to incorporate tasks such as creating a ticket or pushing a configuration into an automated workflow, which fits right into different teams’ daily operations. Plus, we offer the option to enable self-service catalogs which would allow teams to handle certificate-related requests without intervention from a dedicated team.
Certificate Management is an essential task for any organization, but even without a dedicated team, you can build advanced management practices and workflows that would allow you to stay on top of your certificate’s status and never miss an expiration date again.
To learn more about AppViewX and how it can help your team create solid CLM practices, contact us to schedule a demo or sign up for a free trial.
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Tags
- certificate lifecycle management
- Certificate Management
- SSL Certificate Lifecycle Management
About the Author
Anand Purusothaman
Chief Technology Officer
Anand has more than 15 years of experience in the IT industry, specifically in product design and development.
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FAQs
A certificate authority (CA) is responsible for attesting to the identity of users, computers, and organizations. The CA authenticates an entity and vouches for that identity by issuing a digitally signed certificate. The CA can also manage, revoke, and renew certificates.
What is the function of certificate management? ›
A Certificate Manager like DigiCert® CertCentral helps organizations track, issue, install, discover, monitor, remediate, replace and automate all the public TLS/SSL certificates that are issued for their environments including: web domains, servers and email.
What is certification management? ›
Certificate Management, or more specifically, x. 509 certificate management, is the activity of monitoring, facilitating, and executing every certificate process necessary for uninterrupted network operations.
Which of the following is responsible for the certification? ›
The government agencies are responsible to regulate the certification process.
Who is responsible for website certificates? ›
Who is responsible to authorize digital certificates? Within organizations, IT administrators or software engineers, are usually designated to authorize certificates, but anyone can be given permissions to authorize certificates.
Who is responsible for certificate management? ›
A certificate authority (CA) is responsible for attesting to the identity of users, computers, and organizations. The CA authenticates an entity and vouches for that identity by issuing a digitally signed certificate. The CA can also manage, revoke, and renew certificates.
Why is certificate management important? ›
A certificate manager will help you track all the digital certificates you maintain to keep all WiFi-connected devices and domains secure. A certificate manager will also help expedite your work to correct TLS/SSL certificate issues and vulnerabilities, like weak keys or misconfigured certificates.
What is the role of a certification manager? ›
Provide guidance and support to staff on certification-related issues. Implement and maintain quality assurance processes. Oversee the development and maintenance of certification training materials. Ensure that all certification activities are conducted in accordance with company policies.
What is a certified management system? ›
Management system certification is an endorsem*nt of the entrepreneurial capability of organisations that have chosen to optimise their structure and equip themselves with efficient management systems, suitable skills and appropriate internal tools and processes (such as performance indicators).
What is the purpose of cert manager? ›
It can handle all the required operations for obtaining, renewing and using SSL/TLS certificates. Cert-Manager is able to talk with various certificate authorities (or CAs), like: Let's Encrypt, HashiCorp Vault, and Venafi, and issue valid certificates for you automatically.
The purpose of certification is to demonstrate that specified requirements are met. The requirements are usually based on international standards. For example, SFS-EN ISO 9001 is a generic quality management standard that is used as a requirement in the certification of organisations' quality management systems.
What is the responsibility of a certification authority? ›
They help secure the internet for both organizations and users. The main goal of a CA is to verify the authenticity and trustworthiness of a website, domain and organization so users know exactly who they're communicating with online and whether that entity can be trusted with their data.
What is the role of certification? ›
Certification is a formal process that validates an individual's mastery of a particular skillset or set of skills. By obtaining certification, individuals can demonstrate to employers and colleagues that they have the necessary knowledge, skills, and expertise to perform the job effectively.
Who verifies certificates? ›
Issuer: Party that issues digital certificates such as an educational institution or company. Holder: Person or organization that stores and uses the digital certificate. Verifier: Party that needs to verify the validity of the certificate such as an employer or government department.
Who is usually responsible for managing a website? ›
After all, web managers are responsible for managing the functionality of websites of various sizes, and the content as well. They do everything from search engine optimization to overseeing content creators and assisting with the design, development, and maintenance of web applications.
Who issues a certificate? ›
Certificate Authorities, or Certificate Authorities / CAs, issue Digital Certificates. Digital Certificates are verifiable small data files that contain identity credentials to help websites, people, and devices represent their authentic online identity (authentic because the CA has verified the identity).
What is the main purpose of certification? ›
The purpose of certification is to demonstrate that specified requirements are met. The requirements are usually based on international standards. For example, SFS-EN ISO 9001 is a generic quality management standard that is used as a requirement in the certification of organisations' quality management systems.
What is the function of certificate? ›
A certificate is like a passport: it identifies the holder and provides other important information. Certificates are issued by a trusted third party called a Certification Authority (CA).
