In this guest blog post, Paul de Curnou, Senior Business Development Manager, Marketplaces at Keyfactor, discusses how businesses can regain control of their public key infrastructure (PKI), the critical infrastructure underlying strategic organizational investments like cloud migrations, AI initiatives, merger and acquisitions strategies, and the digitization of everything from IoT devices to automobiles.

Every year Keyfactor surveys IT and security professionals in our State of PKI & Digital Trust for a better understanding of where organizations of all sizes are succeeding and what they are struggling with in public key infrastructure, certificate management, and digital trust.

With overarching trends in PKI like the shift to 90-day certificate lifecycles and post-quantum algorithms, we expected more urgency, but we were surprised by the results from the 1,200 respondents across the globe in our 2024 survey.

PKI needs are accelerating with AI initiatives and cloud transformation

91% of organizations are issuing more certificates than ever – with over 81,000 internal certificates on average per organization

The average number of internal certificates at organizations surveyed is over 81,000. Organizations deploy certificates in many ways — on web servers, corporate devices, networking equipment, and their products (physical and digital). New strategic business initiatives are driving additional complexity and sprawl at companies of all sizes.

The top strategic priorities for machine identity management show navigating AI-powered systems and AI-generated content as the leading priority

Ninety-one percent of respondents said their organization is deploying more cryptographic keys than ever. Some of the top identified strategic priorities driving the need for keys and machine identity management in 2024 are:

Navigating the increasing use of AI-powered systems and AI-generated content: 48 percent
Investing in PKI and certificate automation solutions: 47 percent
Supporting cloud transformation and/or DevOps initiatives: 45 percent

Eighty-four percent of respondents agreed this is increasing the operational burden on teams trying to keep pace with the growing volume and diversity of certificates. But it isn’t just the day-to-day management causing issues.

Outages, failed audits, and security incidents are more frequent and expensive
Downstream impacts like outages and other incidents frustrate internal users and disconnect organizations from their customers. PKI-related incidents are very common and can be substantial.

Respondents were asked approximately how many times their organization experienced PKI incidents in the past 24 months

Respondents noted an average of nine PKI incidents in the past 24 months broken down in a few categories:

Three incidents of outages caused by expired certificates
Three incidents caused by a failed audit or lack of compliance from an unenforced/insufficient key or certificate management policies
Three incidents where a breach or security-related incident was caused by lost or stolen keys or certificates

Each incident is expensive, taking 2.6 hours on average to identify, 2.7 hours to remediate, and involving eight staff in the process. What’s worse is the dreaded “all hands on deck” nature of these fixes, delaying all other projects until the incident is fixed.

As organizations invest in more strategic related areas to PKI, they need more staff and resources to maintain their PKI and digital trust needs

It’s no wonder more than 70 percent of organizations need more staffing and resources related to PKI. Homegrown solutions like spreadsheets and scripts or making teams manage multiple CA interfaces (seven on average) enhances the risk of incidents when managing lifecycles and generating thousands of new certificates. What’s the solution?

Organizations of all sizes need to regain control of their PKI
PKI is critical infrastructure underlying strategic organizational investments like complex cloud migrations, artificial intelligence initiatives, merger and acquisitions strategies, and the digitization of everything from IoT devices to automobiles. It’s impossible to transform without trust.

Keyfactor has a long and mutually beneficial partnership with Microsoft through the Azure Marketplace and membership in the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association (MISA), allowing Keyfactor to bring products to market that seamlessly integrate and deploy for Azure customers.

Keyfactor offers scalable, easy-to-use certificate management solutions for small businesses to Global 2,000 enterprises

With Microsoft as a key partner, we want to ensure the reliability and security of PKI efforts, whether customers have 50 or 50,000 employees. That’s why we’re thrilled to introduce our lightweight certificate lifecycle management (CLM) solution, Command SaaS Lite, on Azure Marketplace. This new CLM solution can deploy in minutes to help organizations discover and regain control of their certificates. It’s an ideal starting point for small to midsize businesses beginning their PKI journey.

“For many small and midsize enterprises, Command SaaS Lite provides capabilities like better visibility and control of their certificate footprint without burdening already overworked staff,” said Harry Haramis, Senior Vice President of Cloud and SaaS Marketplaces at Keyfactor. “We designed Keyfactor’s Command SaaS Lite solution to deploy in minutes and provide end-to-end certificate lifecycle management to give IT and security teams valuable time back in their day. Including Keyfactor Command SaaS Lite in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace equips more organizations with essential certificate management capabilities to establish and maintain digital trust.”

Command SaaS Lite complements our full certificate lifecycle automation solution Keyfactor Command, also on Azure Marketplace and trusted by thousands of enterprises around the globe.

Learn more about Keyfactor, and request a demo to see which Command solution works best for your organization.

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