Page 102 - Cyber Defense eMagazine June 2020 Edition

most organizations don’t actually know how many keys and certificates they have. Known certificates
account for a small percentage of an organization’s overall inventory. As a result, unknown or rogue
certificates create significant exposure to unexpected outages and downtime.

Reason #5: Spreadsheets are a time-suck

Organizations who have roughly 100 or more X.509 certificates and use manual processes typically need
a full-time, dedicated resource to manage certificates within their business. In most organizations
responsibility is juggled between several team members. This isn’t only a time-suck, it’s a budget drain,
too - the reality is that IT and security resources are already spread thin. InfoSec teams juggle multiple
responsibilities at any given time, which creates more room for error and oversight when it comes to
certificate management.

If you’re starting to reconsider the way you manage your digital certificates, consider these criteria:

● Scale – do you have more than 100 digital certificates?
● Complexity - do you use multiple certificate authorities (CAs), network devices and cloud
platforms?
● Resources – does your staff spend too much time on certificate-related tasks rather than IT
priorities?
● Outages – have you experienced certificate-related outages over the last two years?

If you answered yes to any one of these criteria, you may want to consider certificate lifecycle automation
to lessen the burden on your in-house team. An automated platform not only streamlines your certificate
management process, it also monitors and reports on certificate status for compliance, saves time and
mitigates security risks posed by manual processes. And with the number of choices available,
onboarding an automated platform is a lot easier than managing your digital certificate spreadsheets.

About the Author

Ryan Sanders is a Toronto-based product lead with Keyfactor, a
leader in providing secure digital identity solutions for the Global
2000 Enterprises. Ryan has a passion for cybersecurity and
actively analyzes the latest in compliance mandates, market
trends, and industry best practices related to public key
infrastructure (PKI) and digital certificates. For more information
visit: www.keyfactor.com or follow @Keyfactor on Twitter and
LinkedIn.

Cyber Defense eMagazine –June 2020 Edition 102
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