As more enterprise businesses move their operations online, security leaders within these organizations must recognize their websites’ ever-evolving protection and integrity issues. Fortunately, the use of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) systems has helped protect and maintain digital systems’ integrity.
That said, if your business is relying on SSL certificates in most of its business applications, there arises the need to employ a robust certificate management system.
This article will look at the role of digital certificates in website protection and why certificate management approaches are required for improved website security.
Certificates and Protection of IoT
Security certificates are the vehicles that provide safe access to data across networks. After acquiring a security certificate, organizations must secure their websites and streamline access by utilizing the latest enterprise SSL certificate manager software and techniques. If your business is running any of the following websites, then certificate management is a must for optimized digital security.
- Ecommerce websites
- Intranet portals
- Data gathering websites
- Financial service
- Government relations websites
- Customer service websites
A successful digital security system takes certificate management and public key infrastructure (PKI) into account. A perfect protection system must integrate the two concepts harmoniously.
Certificate Management and PKI
Simply put, certificate management is the process of discovering, analyzing, monitoring and managing the digital certificates deployed by public or private Certificate Authority (CA). The CA is the issuer of the digital security certificates after attesting to the identity and authenticity of any digital entity. Proper certificate management is essential to the security of your website — you must also understand how it relates to PKI.
PKI includes all the people, policies, roles, processes, software, firmware and hardware required for secure communication across networks. The exchange of digital certificates guarantees trust between network participants exchanging sensitive information. PKI is of significant importance for the numerous devices and applications that require certification.
Therefore, properly authenticating and maintaining these technologies’ certificates serves to keep web connections secure. SSL/TLS is the most common PKI — it uses a hybrid cryptosystem that utilizes both encryption methods. The main entities in PKI management include:
- SSL Certificate Authority: Its main role is to issue end-user keys and SSL certificates and manage their lifecycle.
- Client Application: The end-user software that requests and uses PKI certificates for conducting e-commerce business.
- Certificate Repository: It provides PKI end-users with scalable mechanisms for storing and distributing Certificate Revocation Lists (CRL), certificates, and cross-certificates.
Before embarking on the protection of digital applications, organization leaders have to consider several things, such as certificate-based identity and methods of authentication of the applications. In any case, security leaders must prioritize interoperability of the preferred certificate management system. These entities are involved in all the processes of certificate lifecycle management discussed below.
Certificate Lifecycle Management
Although the certificate lifecycle management coincides with PKI, it abides by its own set of rules focused on discovering, managing and full-time monitoring digital SSL certificates. The process of managing certificates only deals with certificates issued by CAs that are mutually trusted.
SSL certificates ought to be managed diligently throughout their entire lifecycle, which includes these phases:
- Discovery
- Generation
- Analyze
- Supervision
- Monitoring
- Validation and
- Revocation
Managing public or private PKI is anything but simple. Engaging a PKI manager will allow your organization to focus its workers’ expertise on areas directly related to their lines of business. Managed PKI service also goes a long way in protecting against turnover among PKI experts. Above all, this will improve PKI management and digital security by tapping into a specialized team of development experts and best practice PKI programs.
Organized and Safe
The advent of digital transformation has led to an explosion in connected devices today. Each device or website connected to the internet requires a digital security certificate for safe and secure operations.
Since a certificate’s scope is extended to containers, IoTs and devices, it’s always advisable for you to employ the services of a certificate management service provider to avert any failures and streamline efficiency. In doing so, your organization will protect its digital systems against false SSL certificates.
As a proactive security manager in your organization, a systematic certificate lifecycle management is the best way to assess the number and validity period of all certificates deployed. This full-time certificate management solution offers intelligent automation of the complex workflow associated with enterprise digital certificates.