For fans of the Da Vinci Code, you may remember the cryptograph. Jump ahead a few hundred years and that cryptograph is now embedded in our everyday life encrypting digital data using private and public keys.
This is Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), and the market is growing fast due to increased adoption of digital services, IoT devices, and cloud workloads driving demand for secure authentication, encryption, and digital trust. More and more PKI use cases are appearing, but certificate lifespans are decreasing leaving many organisations facing challenges in managing more and more digital certificates.
To tackle this effectively, PKI needs the right design, taking advantage of new innovative solutions such as automated certificate lifecycle management to facilitate reliable PKI management as the usage of certificates within your environment scales.
Unsung occupies a distinctive niche as a PKI consultancy, guiding organisations through the complexities of the subject with a focus on business outcomes and successful adoption of PKI technologies, not simply the delivery of them. We were born over 15 years ago from key contracts in defence and now help a wide range of public and private sector customers with their PKI needs, from design and delivery to tailored managed services.
What is PKI?
Many people use PKI technology, and they don’t realise it. It operates unseen, behind the scenes helping confirm the identities of the applications, devices and accounts (users) increasingly used in everyday life. These include protecting your transactions in online banking and safeguarding email, all using encryption. It protects online shopping by enabling SSL/TLS, even smart devices and secure VPN connections used in remote working rely on PKI. It keeps trust and security in our connected world. Additionally, as more of our lives transact in the digital world, people need to know that any group holding their data does so in a secure way.
PKI enables this protection through software, hardware, policies, and processes that lets you encrypt and sign data. It is key to Digital Trust.
PKI helps to facilitate digital trust by issuing digital certificates that verify the identity of devices, users or services. If a provider the server trusts issues a certificate, the service will accept it as proof of identity.
PKI connects cryptographic keys to a digital certificate. A trusted digital certificate authority issues public keys. It issues them to anyone who requests one. The public key then authenticates the sender of the encrypted message. Recipients keep private keys secret which ensures that only they can open and read a message.
Assessing PKI Maturity
It is obvious that in our fast-changing world, technologies are dynamic. They are always developing. As a result, PKI maturity is a lifecycle, and there is no finish line. It’s a continuous process of assessment, investment, and re-assessment. New standards, threats, and technology requires organisations to evolve to maintain trust and the protections which PKI enables.
The best time to get PKI right is at the start. Constructing on a weak or organically grown PKI is constructing a house on unstable ground. For this reason, moving from one level of maturity to another often needs a full rebuild or migration.
PKI maturity can also plunge downward just as it can surge upward. One misconfigured template or an abuse of PKI privileges can lower trust in your PKI.
We define a low maturity PKI as one where there are many separate and fragmented CAs and PKI tools, lack clear ownership and little or no process or governance. Teams issue and manage their certificates without oversight. This leads to a high risk of outages and security incidents.
High Maturity PKI
A robust public key infrastructure withstands challenges, adapts to growth, and expands capacity. It has well-documented, policy-backed infrastructure with defined ownership. Managed and automated certificates with comprehensive monitoring in place. The system enables integration with other PKI and CA technologies underpinned by a robust PKI architecture. These aspects allow for fast adoption of new cryptography standards, technology and supports changes in business requirements and cyber threats.
Conclusion
As the digital landscape continues to expand, we can’t overstate the importance of PKI. Unsung has over a decade of experience in helping our clients with this challenge and are uniquely positioned to guide organisations through the complexities of PKI. As customers assess and enhance PKI maturity, remember that a solid foundation is crucial. We offer comprehensive health checks to benchmark existing PKI infrastructure and performance, identify improvements and inform future investment. Alongside this, we can transform existing PKI services or design and deliver new PKI solutions.
For more, visit our website at www.unsungltd.com. Or email us at [email protected]. Let’s build a secure and trusted digital future together.
This article was produced in association with Unsung Limited and is classified as partner content. What is partner content? See more here.
Todd Beldham
Todd Beldham is Founder and CTO at Unsung Limited
